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Road of the stars

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Cover

Night sky over California (anonymous)

A true Rosicrucian

Three animals has he tamed:

The lion, hence his patience;

The bear, hence his friendliness;

The snake of his lower nature and he is therefore free of all jealousy.

Three virtues has he acquired:

Faith in what he knows and trust in the promise of the King;

A strong Hope based on his knowledge of the Law as well as his acknow¬
ledgement of the good in everything;

As well as Love towards the Justice in all that happens and thus it is that he
never judges the shortcomings of others or falls victim to garrulousness.

He will never boast because he knows he is an instrument of God
He knows how to be silent because he is obedient to his inner King.
Striving to fulfill his duty and thus reflecting his inner journey of the soul
outwardly, there is no disarray in his life.

Inclined to form a high opinion of others, he will seek the good in all and
everything.

He will never think badly of others, knowing that every circumstance is an
opportunity for inner growth,.

Tranquil within himself he will not impose himself on others. He spurns
vanity.

He is more concerned for the wellbeing of others than for his own.

He pursues no personal advantage and is thus free of ambition.

His faith is based on an acknowledgement of the inner truth and thus he
can not be deceived by delusions of the dialectical world. It makes him free
of irritability.

Sorrow cannot overwhelm him because resistance builds strength.

He will forever remain connected with the group of those that live the
truth.

Index

The Visions of the Great Ones

A. Gadal

On a journey with the Apostle Paul
The respiration field
The way to where

Beauty and the sublime

Essay

The eye and the witness

The Philosophers' Stone

Treatise of the noble German philosopher
Abraham Lambsprinck

A study of inner alchemy from the seventeenth century

66 The Tau cross

Symbol

To be a pilgrim

Column

World images [plus 13, 21, 41]

Index

World images

The Universe has neither circumference nor centre. If there
were a centre and a circumference, then something out¬
side of the world would exist, which is not the case. It is
an impossibility that the Universe could be defined by
a physical centre and a physical border, and it is not in

our power to understand the Universe, of which God is
both the centre and the circumference. And although the
Universe cannot be infinite, it also can't be seen as finite
because there are no borders to limit it.

Nicolas de Cusa (1401-1464)

A, GADAL

A time is coming when you will worship the Father
neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem Yet a
time is coming and has now come when the true
worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit
and in truth, Gospel of John 4:23

The Visions of the Great Ones

F rom time to time, on sunny

days, the patriarch came to the
cave that was called the Her¬
mit. Then he took Matthew,
Guilhem (William) and some
of their friends to the cave called the
Grand Pere (the grandfather) by simply
walking around a sharply protruding part
of the mountain.

The Grand Pere was a jewel, a small
round cave, the walls of which were
covered with all kinds of mysterious
drawings and symbols. At the end of it
could be found a large druid circle with
a covered passage and numerous separate
chambers.

A high platform in the form of a cres¬
cent, called ‘the table’, was covered with
profound symbols and there were some
seats for an audience. The patriarch even
showed them a beautiful pentacle hewn
out in the rock which did not look very
old, but who knows?

‘This is the place where my own ‘ancient’
(older brother/mentor) began his mis¬
sion’, he said, and knelt before the table,
stretching out his open hands on the
sacred stone and praying in long silent
meditation. ‘Never forget’, he added, ‘to
come here from time to time to receive
extra strength.’

At first it seemed difficult to distinguish
between the various symbols that were
drawn over and through each other as
they appeared on every wall of the Grand
Pere. But the patriarch was so skilled
and experienced in these studies and so
self-confident in his lessons that Matthew

was amazed how adroitly he explained
them, using his pointer. Enraptured, he
listened.

In this way he soon became familiar
with the old symbols and monograms:
the resch, the iesmon, the chrismon, the
iesmon-resch, the ieschrismon-resch, the
eternal circle, the alpha and the omega,
the shining pentalpha or star of the Magi,
the microcosm and the macrocosm.

He became familiar with the first ral¬
lying signs of the early Christians, the
Christians of the seven churches of Asia
as wells as the Greek, African and Ro¬
man Christians. He studied the apostolic
cryptography, the secret monograms, di¬
agrams, trigrams and initials, the numer¬
ous different symbols of the first centu¬
ries of the Christian era, and monograms
even from before the Christian era.

Eagerly he followed his master who, by
means of drawings on the rock wall, went
back as far as the original grandpere who
proclaimed the immortality of the soul in
this cave that was later named after him:
the male and female aspects of the eternal
One which, in perfect unity with the
seven-branched tree of Life, embodies the
supreme Being;

the perpetual sacrifice of the creation of
the universe through the self-sacrifice of
the supreme Being;

the Father, the male aspect of the eternal
One;

the Mother, the female aspect of the eter¬
nal One;

the Son, the tree of Life, the creative
Word;

FROM: ON THE PATH
OF THE HOLY GRAIL
BY A. GADAL

the Trinity: Aum.

After these wonderful lessons he made
rapid progress. He spent many hours in
study:

with Rama on Mount Albori;
with Krishna on Mount Meru;
with Hermes in the deep caves of Mem¬
phis or Thebes;

with Moses on the rocks of Serbal;

with Orpheus on Mount Kaukaion;

with Pythagoras at Delphi;

with Plato in his Academy;

with Jesus, the divine Master, on the

Mount.

And he went even further. For he enjoyed
immersing himself in ever deeper con¬
templation, in extraordinary visions.

The vision of Rama under an oak tree in
a clearing in the forest. Rama is asleep
when he hears a powerful voice calling
his name. An impressive figure dressed
in white stands before him. He carries a
small stick with a serpent coiled around
it as well as a golden sickle. He directs
Rama to a mistletoe and later to a torch
and a chalice.

And he hears the words of the Genie,
the Light-bearer: ‘Rama, do you see this
torch? It is the sacred Fire of the divine
Spirit. Do you see this chalice? Hand the
torch to the man and the chalice to the
woman for it is the chalice of Life and
Love. ‘

The vision of Krishna in the hut of the cen¬
tenarian Yasichta, deep in the holy forest.
Matthew also felt himself lifted up to the
seventh heaven of the Devas, to the Father
of all beings. He saw Devaki, the virgin
Mother who, beholding the divine Love,
received the Son, the creative Word.

The vision of Hermes in a secret tomb,
surrounded by Magi and Hierophants.
Matthew saw Osiris, the highest Intel-

Look on the Ariege valley from the Eglises, Ussat-Ornolac

ligence, and the seven rays of the Word
that is Light, corresponding to a phase of
Soul-life. He saw the seven Genii of the
Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars,
Jupiter and Saturn; he recognized and lis¬
tened to the Voice of the Light; he read in
the Egyptian Book of the Dead about the
souls and how, after a shorter or longer
time, according to their state of purity,

they sailed to the Light in the
barque of Isis.

The vision of Moses on top of
Mount Sinai near the entrance
to the cave, protected by tere¬
binth trees (turpentine tree).
He saw the Angel of the Sun,
a ray of the Elohim, and he

The Visions of the Great Ones

heard its voice dissolve in infinite space: ‘I
am who I am.’

The vision of Orpheus, high priest of the
temple of Mount Kaukaion. Matthew
drank in his words when he heard how
Orpheus proclaimed that there is one
unique Being, the divine Husband-Wife,
the Father-Mother, the demi-Ourgos
whose son is Dionysos; he followed the
Word into the cave of Persephone, Maia
the beautiful Weaver, the divine Virgin. He
remembered Orpheus‘ statement: ‘Ardu¬
ous is the way to heaven’ and Matthew
translated this to his own situation: ‘Hard
is the path to the holy Grail.’

The vision of Pythagoras on the hill with the
terebinth and olive trees at Croton. He
followed the tests of initiation, derived
from the Egyptian initiation, the key to
the Cosmos. He became one with the
four elements: earth, air, water and fire,
and grasped the essence of the fifth ether-
ic element, the cosmic fluid, the astral
light, the World-Soul.

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The medieval man had a great recep¬
tiveness of the heart, which is strongly
linked to the intuitive, visual thinking.
To familiarize themselves with the
more abstract concepts the bons
hommes used the ancient language
of symbols, as it was transferred from
the pre-Christian and early Christian
times. One could better describe
these symbols as 'characters', similar
to the Chinese written language.

As an example we can mention for
example the vertical line, the Resch,
which refers to the divine descending
impulse. Resch means God, or 'head',
in the sense of divine consciousness.
When the Resch was signed as a cap¬
ital P it meant God the Son, when it
was shown in the mirror image, then
it meant God the Father. We see the
Hebrew character A'in, also referred
to as Ain Soph, the circle of eternity.
Furthermore, we find the characters
X and C, both referring to Christ, and
M, referring to the Mater Materia,
Mother. The S or Soter, meaning 'sav¬
ior' or liberator, A or Alpha and Ome¬
ga or O, and of course the pentacle,
the five-pointed star that refers to the
reborn soul state.

By forming ever changing composi¬
tions one could explain in each case a
different facet.

The vision of Plato in his Academy of Athens
after he had understood the philoso¬
phers of Asia Minor, Egypt and south¬
ern Italy, where Pythagoras already had
many followers. With him, he studied the
sacred numbers, esoteric cosmogony, the
doctrine of the soul, the microcosm and
the Macrocosm, the wanderings of the
human soul and the divine soul, the True,
the Beautiful, the Good; and finally he
followed this Master into the Eleusinian
mysteries.

The vision of Jesus Here Matthew proved
how much he had already grown spirit¬
ually. Here he had only to consult his
memory.

The Egyptian priests, guided by Ahmosi
the high priest, had announced that the

phoenix would rise from its ashes.

John the Baptist, who sensed that his role
was nearly finished, spoke of Jesus: ‘He
must increase while I must decrease.’

Jesus could only turn inward for his ini¬
tiation and, for a period of forty days of
fasting withdraw into an eagle’s nest in a
cave in the Engaddi mountains where he
found the Reflections of the Prophets, a
little fresh water, nuts and figs. And just as
his divine Master, Matthew also cried out
in ecstasy: ‘I accept the cross so that the
world may be saved.’

Is it necessary to add that Matthew had
reached the stage of his rebirth? The pa¬
triarch realised this and told him that he
would soon be introduced to the knowl¬
edge of the laws that govern the use of

the symbolic Water so that
he would possess the gift of
prediction and prophecy.
Matthew’s joy was great. He
understood that the moment
of his ordination, of his
achieving Perfection, was ap¬
proaching. But he still had to
pass through the purification
by water in the ‘Fount Santa’,
the holy fountain, as well as
through a forty-day retreat to
be concluded with ‘the death
as to matter, in the tomb’.
Bethlehem, the mystical gate
came into view... Soon he
would be an initiate, a Pure
One, a Parfait! What an inspir¬
ing prospect!. ®

On a journey

Being on vacation means to get
some distance from daily life and
to see everything from a new
point of view and another per¬
spective. When travelling to a
distant country we often acquire
a broader perspective because
we become part of a greater
picture,

A s a European we might
be seen in South Africa
as a white, and in Bali as
a colonialist. In the US
we might be seen as an
accomplice and in India as someone
who seeks for eternal truth like so many
other travellers there. In France or Italy
we might stand for the austere part of a
continent that seeks for its identity.
When travelling, we may experience
in a direct and unexpected way how
people, or different groups of people,
have a connection to each other. But at
the same time they are also confined by
their race, group or country. Everyone’s
history and faith are determined by it.
Sometimes in a positive way and often
also in an ill-fated way.

When we travel we often witness how
women and men work very hard and
over exert themselves for a little bit of
luck in their lives or for a better future
for their children or their country.

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On a journey with the Apostle Paul

with the Apostle Paul

Image: Brahma Vihara is the only Buddhist temple on the island of Bali. It is also called the small Borobudur.

Close observation lets us realize that the
difference between them and us consists
of outer circumstances and temporary
conditions only.

During our travels comes a moment
when we begin to perceive ourselves as
a Cosmopolitan, as a citizen of the Uni¬
verse. We realize that we are all in the
same boat and that we all share a very
long path throughout history
It took millions of years until mankind
in its entirety - Homo sapiens - devel¬
oped into a rationally thinking human
being. Only in the last ten thousand
years have we shared the ability to think
and reason.

On our unimaginably long path
throughout history we were never left
alone. Even when throughout difficult
times it was not that obvious we were
always guided by mighty hierarchies
that directed the cosmic processes and
phases of the development of con¬
sciousness. Messengers of the light came
repeatedly to bring us hope and offer us
an infinite outlook on other fields of life
that await us.

Great Ones in Spirit and wisdom illu¬
minated our paths. During the epochs
of history we were given glimpses of
divine beauty, goodness and truth.

With stories, images, and music these
glimpses were etched into human con¬
sciousness.

During all times there were human be¬
ings who were willing to sacrifice them¬
selves for others. But now in our mod¬
ern time (which is already hundreds of
years old) it looks as if we have entered
a period of acceleration that propels us
forward to a culmination.

Our culture began more than 10.000
years ago. Its evolution took a long
time and consisted of a slow self-de¬
velopment. Our self-responsibility kept
increasing since the time of the old

We have to take on full self¬
responsibility, In this process we
will eventually find our own,
innermost and everlasting essence

Greeks. More and more of our fate was
put in our own hands.

And now in our current time, when the
Great Ones that guided mankind in the
past have stepped into the background,
we have to take on responsibility for our
lives ourselves.

We cannot leave it anymore to our
parents or our leaders. We cannot blame
our circumstances or God. It is solely up
to us. We have to grow up and take on
full self-responsibility. In this process we
will eventually find our own, innermost
and everlasting essence.

What Bali can teach us

When vacationing in Bali we can very
clearly experience the differences in
development of consciousness. The
Balinese are proud of their mix of ances¬
tral worship and traditional Hinduism.
Their entire life is dominated by reli¬
gion.

Sculpture in the temple complex Brah¬
ma Vihare. Bramavihara relates to the
four states of a Spirit that has found
the peace of the Universe: Love,
Compassion, Equanimity and Joy over
the happiness of others.

Every day women are busy for hours
with the preparation of exquisitely wo¬
ven and colourfully decorated offerings
for sacrifice. Several times during the
day men and women conduct ceremo¬
nies to honour their ancestors or to gain
favours from their many gods or to pray
to Brahma. Every free day is used for
ceremonies.

How to think and live is determined by

On a journey with the Apostle Paul

family and the village, by century-old
traditions and rituals. Individuality and
independence seem to be of less impor¬
tance for the Balinese. This will probably
change in the near future. The growing
number of Muslims will most likely
overpower the Balinese tradition with
their more practical life style as well as
their orientation towards society and
politics.

The inhabitants of Bali are faced with
the challenge of the disappearance of
their old traditions and of having to
adapt their traditional life style. It is
tragic and the process will bring a lot
of sorrow and confusion. But at the
same time it is a necessary phase in the
unstoppable development in the grow¬
ing-up of mankind.

On the one hand we feel very distant
to everything we see on Bali. On the
other hand we intuitively recognize the
situation. We realize that these develop¬
ments are nothing new. They are actually
only the appearance of one rotation of
a spiral movement that is repeated over
and over again.

The time span of a hundred years or so
is then not even important anymore.

In this moment we are all brought to the
basis of our existence. The trends of po¬
larization, which we all can see and feel
everywhere, drive people and groups
of people apart; though eventually we
will be able to find each other again on
another level.

In our own life we can see similar pro¬
cesses. As individualized, western human
beings we struggle with primal fears,
with our powerlessness and vulnera¬
bility in the world and its forces. We
are confronted with archetypal themes
and fundamental questions that bring
up archetypal emotions; e.g. child-like
fears, suppression, feelings to be cast
out, a strong sense of loss and loneli-

ness. These are sub-conscious shadows
of repetitions of the one fundamental
experience: the expulsion from paradise.
This experience is always present as a
wound that does not heal and felt like a
great deprivation. No human being can
escape it.

Again and again we try to numb this
pain with the three classical decep¬
tions: Fame, Power and Wealth. ‘Classic’
because already the Bible with its deep
wisdom, points out these deceptions.

If we follow the path of these classical
deceptions, we will — individually and
collectively - get even deeper entangled
in helplessness and lose more and more
of our inner direction.

We are not alone

Through our connection to the Golden
Rosycross we know from within that the
fundamental inner conflict can only be
solved by reconnecting the heart with
the Spirit of Love and Freedom. This
spirit belongs to the microcosmic Heart.
Only in this way can the deep wound
in our being be healed. And only in this
can we truly ‘grow up’.

“When I was a child, I spoke like a
child, thought like a child, and reasoned
like a child. When I became a man, I
gave up my childish ways. Now we see
only an indistinct image in a mirror,
but then we will be face to face. Now
what I know is incomplete, but then I
will know fully, even as I have been fully
known.” (1 Corinthian 13.11)

In our time many things are in question,
unreliable and changing and many peo¬
ple seek desperately for a new basis for
their lives. When we arrive at the nadir
of our life we discover that we are not
alone. Human beings around us have the
same experience. This is the one thread
that connects us and leads us on a way
out. Like a tender touch, a quiet whisper

or an ‘answer-that-explains-everything’
resounds the call: ‘Come. Follow me.’

The excerpt above shows us how strong¬
ly even today the Apostle Paul resonates
with our imagination. This is for a rea¬
son. He was fulfilled by the fiery Spirit
of Truth and Love. He lived on the basis
of the Gnosis in the same way as we try
to do so today. Paul had accomplished
the astounding and magnificent stage
of being truly ‘grown-up’ spiritually.
Therefore he was autonomous in his
thinking and his actions. He was tireless
in his striving to remove everything that
did not belong to the essence. Paul was
courageous in renewing everything.

But he was not vain. He was always
aware of his limitations as a nature-born
human being. These are characteristics
of a real grown-up. What made him a
truly noble grown-up is that he was not
only independently thinking and living
from an inner knowledge, but he was
as well deeply connected to the human
beings around him. (He surely couldn’t
act any differently.) He was connected
to everyone else without overpowering
them. He trusted their soul power and
focused only on what was possible or
could become possible.

In this way, we could have a similar
relation to other people, and probably,
sometimes it is like that already. Not
only in an abstract and theoretical way
and not only with those who conscious¬
ly seek and find the Spiritual School, but
also with those human beings that cross
our paths and have a different world
view.

We are good helpers when we - like
Paul - are guided by the Spirit and have
an inner independence; when we are
undivided within ourselves and our
head and heart are one; - when we
know from deep within our heart, but at
the same time also understand with our

head. When we can live out
of such compassionate and
healing understanding. To
know and live this quenches
our inner thirst guides us to
so much more.

We are a good helper when
we have an open heart and
connect with every human
being on the basis of this
liberated and enlightened
soul state. Then we will
truly understand our fellow
human beings, be of support
to them within the frame¬
work of their possibilities.
These moments require from
us to be truly present in the
here and now, so we can
see before anything else the
value of the other person as a
fellow human being.

And that is love. ®

On a journey with the Apostle Paul

World images

Wisdom cannot be found within philosophical books
or in eloquence, but rather by turning away from these
influences of the senses and turning to the most simple
and infinite things. Learn how to receive these in a temple
which is free from all vice. Immerse yourself in fiery love,
so that you can see and taste how sweet is "that which is
sweeter than all sweetness". Once you have tasted this,
everything you find important in this moment will seem

ridiculous. You will become so humble that not an ounce
of arrogance, or of other vices, will remain within you.
Once you have tasted this wisdom you will, with a chaste
and pure heart, become inseparably attached to it.

You would then rather prefer to forsake this world and all
of the other things that don't correspond to this wisdom.
Instead you will live with ineffable happiness, knowing
that you will depart this earth. Nicolas de Cusa

ae resniration field

Inspiration: all human life on earth begins with a deep
breath, often followed by a loud scream. The so-called inde¬
pendent life of each of us depends entirely on breathing. As
the earth is surrounded by an atmosphere, so in a similar
way we live inside our own little sphere, our breathing field,
This microcosmic respiration field is a life sphere, a very
personal astral sphere, structurally and functionally exactly
the same as the large respiration field of the cosmos.

Adem Breathing propels everything into life, into an on-going conversion
to progressive change. That mysterious life force was recognized through¬
out all times and was named prana by the Indians, pneuma by the Greeks -
the Chinese called it chi and the Romans spiritus vitalis, as it is the life-giving
essence for all levels on which life expresses itself
The breath regulates the construction of matter and also its destruction.
And it regulates the breakthrough to a completely new, higher level of life.
Or, as poetically described by a botanist inspired by Taoism: “The whole
scenery outside is symbolic of the landscape inside a person. Everything
is included in one and the same natural, cosmic process. At the same time
this is a spiritual process, from high to low inspired by chi, in which the
entire cosmos shares, and man occupies a modest place - although he may
also share in it with heart and soul so that all separation disappears.

Just as deep in the countryside hidden caves open up to the great space, he
continues, thus liberation and immortality are hidden in the inner world
of man.

Installation of Jim Lambie in the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh 2014.
Photo Ruth Clark, Courtesy of The Fruitmarket Galery

It is always that apparent contradiction which carries the miracle of the One in itself,
the miracle of the perfect possibility for liberation, the miracle of a path that always
continues, a life sphere which is infinite. In “The Nuctemeron”

J. van Rijckenborgh states however:

“There is no dialectical human being and no divine man who can resist the guidance
of the magnetic forces in his respiration field.”

A very powerful statement that drives us to re-consider the situation in which we find
ourselve^s^en from the perspective of our respiration field.

Every human being when coming to this earth is born into a breath field - a field,

'a sphere in which the legacy of many previous lives was left behind. That may be a
beautiful treasury - or a dank prison - or anything conceivable in between — with
which we start our life.

Atmosphere is all-decisive. In a good atmosphere mischief can be changed for the
better. A sphere or a field is determined by the forces that are concentrated therein. The
classical Rosicrucians knew they were protected by a fiery force concentration in their
respiration field. They placed their work full-knowingly under the protection of that
power: “under the shadow of Thy wings.”

Every person must breathe. We can hold our breath for just for a short time or we can
breathe fast in a forced way. If we were to continue with either of these we will lose
our consciousness, after which our automatic respiration system will take over again
in the same way that breathing continues as it does in our sleep or in a coma.

In a corresponding manner, it is also not possible to influence the magnetic or astral
breathing with our will. A man who had tried to rid himself of a deep rooted tenden¬
cy with his will once said “All that I could do with my will, was to decide to look at it
- in order to perceive it as objectively as possible.

Karl von Eckartshausen saw this ‘objectively perceiving’ as a first step towards an
“inner perception”. It is an inwardly stepping back, maintaining a certain distance,
though with full attention. Full attention and stepping back: this may seem contra¬
dictory. However, it is the attitude of someone who has come to a boundary and yet
knows from within that there is a path that goes further. Because of this attitude a cer¬
tain degree of calmness comes into the respiration field, which enables us to assimilate
other magnetic forces.

He or she who, maintaining that calmness, enters one of the temples of the Spiritual
School, knows that for him or for her, for a moment the opportunity is given to as¬
similate nutrition from God’s breath. It is the holy Light sustenance which illuminates

The respiration field

the space created in his breath field, which corrodes the threads of fate, which creates
harmony in chaos and strengthens peace in the person.

The breath of God is not just a radiation. It is also a substance flowing through the
universe, which permeates everything; it is a radiation which will be able to change
humankind entirely. The undeniable consequence thereof will also be that a person’s
magnetic breathing will change. His respiration field becomes more quiet and his
consciousness clerer. With all the work being undertaken in that consciousness, such a
person frees himself more and more from his astral ballast.

Thus there is an increasing space for the soul. The soul increases in brightness, and
slowly but surely the atmosphere in the respiration field changes.

Karl von Eckartshausen calls this the result of the confluence of observant life with
practical life. The School teaches: unyielding belief, intense yearning and constantly
pursued striving, or symbolically: ‘standing on the carpet’. These are the conditions
which eventually change the magnetic breathing and open up the respiration field for
forces from the pure astral atmosphere.

Initially, we live in a closed atmosphere, in which a seemingly meaningless sequence
of construction and demolition takes place, and where there seems to be no room for
escape. By means of an observant attitude of life, through continuous openness to the
more profound, renewal and exaltation, and from there to undertake what contrib¬
utes to happiness and preservation of the world and humanity, an increasingly rarefied
subtle atmosphere will - from the limitless atmosphere of the Great Breath - descend
into our breath field.

Then the situation will arise that J. van Rijckenborgh describes in the Nuctemeron: “The
magic fire of the universe, wherein is all life, now no longer has to penetrate through
the tangled threads of the web of destiny in the respiration field. The original fire can
enter directly into the microcosmic system and it will be concentrated in the respira¬
tion field, from which the candidate will feed his being with this hermetic fire. “It is
an extraordinarily gracious situation described here, which everyone will be able to
recognize and look forward to. Thus man is given a glimpse into a high reality which
guides him along the shortest possible path - the path of serving mankind. This path
equips and protects him completely, because it is no longer his will that drives him,
but the soul that lives with the Spirit.

If the Soul is like this - not because we contemplate it, not because we want it, but
because the time for our longed-for efforts has arrived - then the breath field becomes
a hallowed field. Then it is inevitable that all our thoughts, feelings and actions will be
dedicated to the spiritual happiness and preservation of the world and humanity. ®

ie way to where

O n the modest parking lot

where our small group stood
waiting for our departure,
little could be seen of the
surroundings. We had been
told all sorts of things of what was waiting
for us, but not the whereabouts of where we
had to go. I sneaked a look around me. The
others seemed so sure of themselves! They
had backpacks, mountaineering boots and
ingenious water bottles. I think they all had
taken survival courses or something like that,
for they all knew the technical terminology.
They talked with the leaders as if they had
already made a lot of this kind of trips.

For me everything was new. I had only been
listening, open mouthed as it were.

It all sounded as if I had been waiting my
entire life for this. I was filled with ques¬
tions, but I didn’t pose any. Yet they were
answered, but not with directions. When I
was asked if I wanted to go on a journey, I
was surprised that I was accepted and at the
same time I knew that nothing could have
stopped me. All disadvantages, for clearly
they were there, were clearly taken care of,
too.

There was just no stopping it. I had for
some time had a feeling of intense expecta¬
tion, not knowing what I actually expected.

I received a smile from an old man, with no
apparent reason, and this made me feel that
I was on the right track. Incomprehensible
maybe, but undeniable. Then I met this tour
group. A remarkable collection of people and
each one so different... And though I was
already middle aged, here I was a greenhorn.
Oddly enough the confident ones were also

much more casual. They skipped the intro¬
ductory evening because of a game that they
wanted to play. But no matter, they already
knew so much about it. Hey, what’s happen¬
ing now? Are the ones with the backpacks
leaving us now or did it just look like that?
Yes, that’s how it was. They turned back, but
backing out could never be the way, because
there was no going back.

The leaders came over to wish us a good
trip. We all shook hands and then I was
on my own. You might say that that was
impossible, in the middle of a small group,
and yet that is how it was. I only carried a
compass, but didn’t know how it worked.
Because I didn’t know where I was supposed
to go to, I just started to walk. Which suited
me well enough. The surroundings were
magnificent and at regular intervals I met
a fellow traveller, sometimes one whom I
knew and sometimes one who had been on
the path longer than I. All of us relied upon
our own compass but these were probably
all of a different make because there were no
travellers that walked beside or behind me.
Funnily though, it felt as if there were, but
when I looked around I saw nobody.

I was so glad that I was on my way that I
almost began to hop. Even though we had
been warned, I didn’t notice any nasty ob¬
stacles. Sometimes I saw someone standing
still, with a worried face, and I also met
somebody who had lain himself down on
the ground. I wanted to help him up, but
that didn’t work so well so he said that he
would manage by himself.

Of course it rained sometimes and it was
often cold or hot, but generally speaking

The way to where

The only thing that really draws my attention in these
surroundings is a large species of bird that sits on top
of the boulder

? ;■ v

■ ».

’■ w?

Light Visions

my journey went pretty smoothly Then
suddenly I came to a border. Not that I saw
one, but I noticed it when I crossed it. Now
everything was new and unknown to me.

I therefore walked more carefully, at times
doubting if I should go left or right. There
came crevices in the rocks that I had to
jump over, sometimes not without danger.
There were parts that were very high that
left me all done in, followed by scary steeply
winding paths going downwards that were
slippery from the rain. Yet I never wished
that I had stayed home, because home, that
was here, at each moment.

Presently I stand before this enormous boul¬
der, for weeks or months, I am not exactly
sure. I have already tried all kinds of things. I
have pushed, pulled, shoved, hacked, carved,
assailed, scaled it and slid down the boulder
again. No human being in sight and I cannot
go one step further. I have gathered all my
strength but it does not want to yield. I even
cannot see what is behind beside it. Going
back is impossible - I don’t even need to try
it. But yet I cannot remain here forever, do I?
I am hungry and thirsty and that is why I
would try anything, if I would just get rid
of that boulder. But the more I try, the more
tired I become and I definitely do not want
to sleep. I have been assured that one must
never fall asleep, for it is then very difficult
to awaken. I sit down on a spur of the boul¬
der and reflect on all the methods I have al¬
ready used. And yet, there must be a way...
Every now and then it seems as if just out of
reach something useful pops into my head,
but if I try to catch it, it is gone again. The
only thing that really draws my attention in

these surroundings is a large species of bird
that sits on top of the boulder. It has been
there for quite a while now. It is a strange an¬
imal that looks askance at me. I am so lonely
now that I have the tendency to have a chat
with it, but that is crazy of course. Every now
and then it flies upwards for a bit and then
returns to the same spot. It would be nice if
I could fly myself, I think. Then I would be
able to fly over this thing. Could that bird be
living behind that boulder?

Look, it flies up again, higher than before and
I follow it with my eyes. Higher and higher
it goes and it is wonderful to see how its
slender wings contrast against the blue sky. A
circle of light surrounds it and I realize that it
flies exactly between the sun and me, straight
towards the light.

I forget the boulder and let my heart fly
with it, so lovely, light and free. No part of
my trip can surpass this high flight and it
looks as if the bird wears a crown of intense
white light with jewels in all colours. It is
crazy, but I feel myself coming closer and
closer to it and pretty quickly I reach its
back where I find a soft seat. We soar togeth¬
er brilliantly through the sky but suddenly
my thoughts are with the journey. Should it
go upwards?

The bird turns its head and I look into the
eyes of an old acquaintance, but who? His
voice is low and high and soft and clear
at the same time: ‘First up and then down
again, and then to work!’

And in high spirits we descend again to the
point where I stood before. The boulder is still
there but it is now transparent. I take a step
and without any effort I walk through it. ®

The way to where

World images

At the moment I still see eternal life as if in a mirror, in
an image, as a mystery, for it is nothing but the blessed
gaze with which You never cease to divine me so lovingly,
indeed, even into the secret places of my heart. Thus to be
seen by You in this way is life-giving. You continually and
ceaselessly extend to me the sweetest love. You mean to
enkindle love in me by giving of Your love and by feeding

me, stirring my highest longing. By stirring this yearning,
You let me drink of joy and immerse me in a source of life,
by which it will continue and expand.

The purpose is to let me share in Your immortality...
because that is the absolute ultimate of every reasonable
demand and a greater one can not exist.

Nicolas de Cusa

essay

Albert Bierstadt, Looking down Yosemite Valley, California 1865

Beauty and the sublime

Beauty and
the sublime

The sublime (from the Latin sublimis ) relates to the quality of great¬
ness, whether it is physical, moral, intellectual, metaphysical, esthetical,
spiritual or artistic, The term refers in particular to a greatness that
falls outside all possible computation, measurement or imitation,
(Wikipedia)

A ntiquity attributed a spiritual value to the power of beauty
that could elevate the soul. In the course of the centuries
we see a fluctuation of appreciation in this respect, not in
the least because mankind came to realize that in order to
experience beauty we need our senses, but the reliability of
the senses with regard to a spiritual value is relative.

Nevertheless, the appreciation of e.g. Venus as a representative of beauty can
be called a constant in all times, possibly with a small dip in the twentieth
century. Lady Venus as a symbol of beauty is universal, although the nature
of beauty in itself cannot be comprehended nor possessed at any length of
time. An Italian poet of the sixteenth century called the true enchantment
of the beauty of Venus: ‘non so che’, that is: ‘I can’t really fathom it.’

The appreciation of the Sublime comes later. The concept was given mean¬
ing much later in history. In alchemy, Jan van Ruusbroec, possibly for the
first time, describes the great heat that is associated with the inner work
of a spiritual wedding and he calls this (spiritual) work ‘Sublime’. In the
spiritual-alchemical tradition, the stage of the Sublimatio is an important
phase in the spiritual process of transmutation. And the ‘immortalization’
of the soul found its inspiration in the enchantment of beauty through the
radiation of Venus that was called ‘divine’.

In the Romanticism era, the relation between sensory perception to see the
Sublime and the experiencing of the Beauty appears to be a struggle. Only
in transfiguration this struggle comes to an end when we are able to com¬
plete the alchemical process by the ‘Dionysian fire’ and end it in a sublime
alchemical wedding.

In a prayer of the Mandeans - a Johan-
nine religious community for which
purity and the working of the light stood
central - there is a passage in which the
one sending up the prayer asks God if his
eyes might only perceive the beauty of the
world and the reality, and not its ugliness.
It is not so much an appeal to learn to see
beauty but rather to adjust one’s sight in
such a way that only beauty will be per¬
ceived and transmitted to the conscious¬
ness. As if the supplicant would want to
change the ‘sensory’ code in such a way
that only the values of purity and the
workings of the light would be reflected
in what is observed.

Of course, that would be marvellous if it
could be brought about and maybe a part
of the great law of love is indeed about
seeing the beauty of creation and encoun¬
tering this wondrous nature without fight
and strife and to cover its ugliness with
the mantle of love at the same time.

But could we permit ourselves to ignore
that part of reality? That is to say: is the
process of learning to appreciate both
beauty and ugliness, not part of‘following
the path’? Is it not important to be sober
and to see beauty against the existence of
ugliness? J. van Rijckenborgh and Catha-
rose de Petri present in The Chinese Gnosis,
the staggering insight that ugliness is the
proof that beauty exists — the one proves
the other. They write: ‘The human be¬
ing is poor of beauty, of real Beauty, and
therefore he loves delusion. And because
he is so unhappy, he lies away the ug¬
liness. But that is not possible, since he
who builds his life on appearances, on the
unreal, raises at the same time very strong
opposing reactions. If you come to the
discovery that the situation is not in order
— a situation that initially you have called
beautiful, resoundingly and with full con¬

The appearance of beauty
and the appearance of good
both bring forth the ugliness

viction - then at first you will not accept
that discovery. But as you proceed, the
reality of ugliness overpowers you. That
means the immersion in and the degen¬
eration by appearances. The appearance of
beauty and the appearance of good both
bring forth the opposite: ugliness’.

Can we conclude from this that we can
experience true beauty only in the sub¬
lime?

There are people who say that they have
experienced the sublime, that they have
had an experience that they could but
call sublime. A peak experience, a mo¬
ment of illumination, a moment of being
lifted above oneself that coincided with
the serenity of united experience* and
moreover comprises, at the same time,
the experience of perfect relationships in
sound, colour, form and content.

Senses and consciousness, separately
and in connection, may experience the
sublime. The harmony of relationships can
be sublime and deep and moving — and
bring to mind the notion of the good,
the beauty and truth of Greek philosophy.
There is no separate Greek word for ‘the
sublime’. Nevertheless the ‘sublime’ has
an expression in our language. Etymolog¬
ically it knows an origin in Latin via Old-
French and Middle English and originated
somewhere between 1200 and 1500.

Latin gives a cryptic description as the
origin of ‘Sub-limen’, like ‘hanging under
the doorjamb’ and later ‘hanging high in
the air or uplifting’

Beauty and the sublime

Although there is no Greek equivalent for
the word ‘sublime’, ‘the beauty, the good
and the true’ on which Plato wrote comes
close to the concept of the ‘sublime’. For
the Greeks, ‘beauty’ had an ‘absolute val¬
ue’ and certainly approaches our present
day concept.

The sublime as an experience, however,
seems to be of later times, although the
myth of the cave of Plato certainly alludes
to such an experience.

The further development of the word
shows a degeneration of meaning, until it
is almost meaningless, as if the ‘sublime’
has diminished it’s own power and has
come under the same category as ‘cool’,
‘mega’ and ‘super’.

When we look at the degeneration of the
intrinsic meaning of words ‘Ultimate’ and
‘Sublime’ there is not much difference.
The writer Hans Hertog de Jager explains
in his book The Sublime that the word
‘is so contaminated with the feelings
of exaggeration and a lack of a sense of
reality that we can only be used with¬
out irony by commentators of football
matches and adolescents with a TV-vocab¬
ulary: ‘Sublime, man!’ According to this
writer sublime has become a word ‘that
expresses a spiritual impotence and a lack
of subtlety’.

Experiencing the Sublime

We see already some experience for the
soul and that continues in the meaning
of‘uplifted’, ‘striving for the highest’ and
even in a negative sense as ‘ambitious’.**
In the mystic works of Meister Eckehart,
in the philosophy of Ficino and Cusanus,
we find this ‘striving for the highest’ in
particular as a striving for the classical
ideal of beauty and the experience of uni¬
ty; often going back as far as Plotinus and
the Neoplatonic philosophers — where a
connection was made with the One.

With the mystic Jan van Ruusbroec the

word ‘sublime’ is strangely enough used
for the uplifting of the consciousness.

He sees it as a state of enlightenment
that one can experience; an intense and
powerful inner fire with an immense heat
(The sublimity of the alchemical wed¬
ding) . And with that, the wedding already
touches somewhat on the alchemical
inner processes.

The nous

We encounter this elevation of the spirit,
known as an experience by the soul that
sees itself changing, in several situa¬
tions that always lead us back to Hermes
Trismegistus. For the experience of the
sublime, he states, the slumber of all the
physical senses is a prerequisite.

‘Hermes: Once, while I was meditating on
the essential things and my mind elevated
itself, my bodily senses fell into a slumber
as may happen to someone who, after
excessive feeding or a result of great bod¬
ily fatigue, is overcome by a deep sleep’.
Notice that this is not a justification of the
sensuality but a comparison so that the
profane awareness can open itself for the
sublime.

This coupling of the nous that is uplifted
after the slumber of the senses, we might
find strange now, because you might
wonder how beauty as an absolute value
in art and science can be experienced
without the senses. Is that not an indica¬
tion that beauty as a component of the
sublime as absolute value cannot exist in
art and science - and that ugliness is in¬
deed proof of the appearance of beauty?
Yet a later philosopher, Spinoza, presented
again a similar process: he let go of any
desire and every thought of riches, hon¬
our and pleasure - so that his nous could
ascend. And he also — just like Hermes —
has this experience in his nous. Spinoza’s
sublimity is the high Reason and is equal
to the ‘the True’ of Plato.

Experiencing the sublime with the
senses?

But in the course of time — from around
1 7 5 0 - people were no longer resigned
to the impossibility of experiencing the
sublime by the senses. Enlightenment and
Romanticism explored whether it was yet
possible to experience perfect beauty via
the senses that gave the observer the expe¬
rience of the abstract ‘beauty’ of Plato.

In Romanticism we see a resurrection of
what one thought was the Greek awareness
of beauty, the old classical values that were
researched in the Renaissance in a rational
way, but already at that time it resonated

in the bodily senses. Beauty is complete
harmony, initially within the measurement
of numbers, form, colour and architec¬
ture. An artist is the great creator of order,
according to the universal standards but
also to his own experience. Chaos becomes
the cosmos in the sublime experience of
beauty. According to the Greeks, beauty is
‘divine order’ (Pythagoras) and later by
Plotinus beauty is divine brilliance. And
that ‘divine’ of the Greeks can be translated
as ‘sublime’.

Then it can appear that beauty has also
become something untouchable and daz¬
zling; as if the perfect harmony provides a

Left: Temple of Unity, Agrigento,
Sicily, ca. 440-430 BC
Right: James Turrell makes colour
installations, 'multiplying' the obser¬
vation, as in this installation at the
Guggenheim, 2013

Beauty and the sublime

static beauty. In the same way the pro¬
jection of heaven as a perfect living and
dwelling place repels many people by its
alleged dullness. It no longer inspires, mo¬
tivates, moves us and cannot set emotions
into motion anymore, making it seem that
‘life’ has left it.

Romanticism

That was why in the Romanticism period,
after the mental perception of perfection
of numbers and measurements during the
Renaissance and Baroque, there came a
search for the beauty in nature. One want¬
ed to be moved in the wild and unspoilt

elements of nature, up to and including
the ultimate undergoing of the sensation
of danger (for example by the painter
William Turner), in order to experience
the ultimate pure rawness of nature. That
was also the consequence of the distinc¬
tion that was made between the beauty
and the sublime in the eighteenth century,
because in nature beauty is experienced
through feelings of harmony, serenity and
calmness, but therein are also great chaotic
and overwhelming experiences which may
lead to bewilderment, confusion and fear.
And in this overwhelming experience also
lies the chance for the manifestation of the

Chaos be¬
comes the
cosmos in
the sublime
experience
of beauty

sublime. Friedrich Schiller in his ‘On the
Sublime’ (1801) describes the sense of the
sublime as a mix of feelings. It is a combi¬
nation of hurt, which is manifested in its
highest degree as thrill as well as joy that
can grow into an ecstasy. Jacob Boehme
describes this ‘hurting’ as a knightly strug¬
gle that we should allow into our being.
The ecstasy is not a ‘trance of the senses’,
but it plays a role in the phase of the over¬
whelming of the senses. However, it is not

lust; for refined souls this feeling is much
to be preferred above lust. That is also what
Hermes and Spinoza seem to indicate.

The (alchemical) wedding of
Hermes and Herse from a picture
by Giovanni Jacopo Garaglio, from
the weaving factory of the Fleming
Willem de Pannemaker, ca. 1570

The overwhelming untamed nature -
a sublime experience

Acts of nature strike us as sublime if they
escape our will and therefore cannot be
tamed. It is here that we see raw nature;
the storms whipped up, oceans, hurri¬
canes and volcanoes, the high mountains,

Beauty and the sublime

abysses and wild streams of Turner. That
nature can be an overwhelming perception
for the senses, whereby a dimension is
unveiled where man and nature permeate
each other and are in a state of self-forget¬
fulness. In that self-forgetfulness. Thus a
strong feeling of oneness with nature can
be experienced.

‘By this experience of oneness nature can
again become the reality in which we feel
rooted and out of which we may live’.***
But not until we have become aware that
the combination of two opposite feelings
have become irrefutably one feeling, ex¬
posing our moral independence.

Thus we experience, in the feeling of the
sublime, that our mood does not necessar¬
ily aim at a ‘meaningfulness’, that the laws
of nature are not necessarily also our laws
and that we have in ourselves an autono¬
mous principle that is independent of all
moral emotions.

Alchemy

Maybe this all becomes clear if we com¬
pare the aforementioned points with
several alchemic phases. Therein we can
recognize the phase of Solutio and Coagu-
latio, and also Conjunctio.

Solutio — self-surrender, as solution, when
becoming conscious of being a drop in the
ocean.

Coagulatio — connecting the spiritual with
the drop in the ocean, by an inner process.
Conjunctio — the coinciding and melting
together of paradoxical parts in the inde¬
pendent one Spirit.

Romanticism and the Sublime in other
expressions of art

Beethoven, Chopin, Mahler, Debussy, Arvo
Part (but also others) were composers that
could voice in their romantic music the
wild nature, tranquillity and the solu¬
tion. Mozart, in his Magic Flute, put the
Alchemical Wedding of Christian Rosy-

cross into music. But actually, all forms
of art in the Romanticism try to convey
the sublime. There are even thinkers who
conclude that the best literary fiction -
important works in world literature — were
written in the nineteenth century.

How do you order chaos?

The romantic process of meeting the
Sublime in the overwhelming experience
is yet different on many points to the task
that the Greeks posed for themselves to
bring order in the chaos of the cosmos.

In Chronos, that is: Time devouring all
his children, Plato searches for a solution
by the distinction between the world as it
is and how it could be when it coincides
with the world of ideas; wherein Beauty,
the True and the Good are manifest. In the
sublunary world we, human beings, can
only understand the world because we
have a recollection of the world of ideas.
Therefore it is important to realize how
we can proceed and what ‘we’ do with the
historical data that are presented us so that
we can come to a new solution. Can we
reach beyond Chronos by ordering chaos
in an inspired way, on the basis of Uranus,
the planet of intuition and genius, ruler of
Aquarius?

After Romanticism, can we approach the
sublime in a new life reality supported by
the influences of the planets Uranus and
Neptune, wherein we use new sublime
achievements, as accents of a truly new
era? In the twenty-first century, can the
sublime be the result of actual, spiritual al¬
chemy which anticipates a sublime golden
age?

Dionysus and Apollo

Yes, said Friedrich Nietzsche in the nine¬
teenth century, it is possible by transfig¬
uration; from the insight that the field of
spiritual life is controlled by Dionysian and
Apollonian forces. Because Dionysus is the

All forms
of art in the
Romanticism
try to convey
the sublime

alchemical fire-principle that burns away
the impurity with his untamed fiery forces
out of the hidden sublime that can become
a transfiguration of Apollo or the divine.
Therefore, this process does not come
about by beholding static and ‘ultimate
supreme’ beauty and striving for perfect
harmony, but it is a process of conversion,
which ultimately turns out to be nothing
more than just a process, an awareness
process. And Nietzsche, who himself
stood still in the middle of Romanticism,
indicated that that inner process is linked
to action, powerful activity. We can execute
that transfiguration only within ourselves
and we should not project it onto others
or onto the outside world. In alchemy this
corresponds with the phase of Coagulatio,
the self-activity and the Sublimatio that is
the art of liberating the hidden spirit from
its limitations (Cronos and Saturnus) and
all that clings to lower life.

In order that this Coagulatio, which is
also called the Laborare (the working, the
action and self-activity) is not directed to
others and the outside world Nietzsche
commanded: ‘Thou shalt make war in thy¬
self! ’ In this way he preserved and directed
that energy to the inner process of trans¬
figuration.

That may be the active form of‘Know
thyself’ of the Greeks. Maybe these two
commandments are not mutually exclusive
but rather are they paradoxical and com¬
plimentary, that is making it completely
whole and healing.

Mondriaan, the Style and the sublime
Yet we see in the turbulent period at the
end of the nineteenth century and early
twentieth century, a revival of the har¬
mony-model in a new guise: the coat of
the painter Mondrian of the Style, the art
movement of Theo van Doesburg. They
went in search of the harmony and the
patterns of nature again. One could herein

see a processing of, or a reaction to the
Baroque, the strict application of the laws
of measures and numbers, the ordering
of Saturn. Namely, a rational and rigorous
quantitative approach to nature aborted
the opportunity to recognize and experi¬
ence the sublime in nature, and hence the
recognition of pattern disappears from
life. The quest for simplicity and a basis in
that nature in a cultural element such as
painting gave deepening to the experience
and led some to the thrill of the sublime.
That was true not only for the paintings of
Mondrian, but can also be seen in works
of Rothko, Newton and James Turrell.

Often monochromatic, abstract and yet in¬
finitely inward-pulling and revealing that
beauty can be experienced in a seemingly
simple abstraction that moves. Because in
a mysterious way one experiences in that
simplicity the unity of the opposites. So
you would still - very cleverly! — experi¬
ence the sublime through the senses.

Rejection of beauty

At the beginning of the twentieth century,
however, a completely different notion
became central to painting and the visual
arts: the realization that beauty and the
perception of beauty would on the contra¬
ry be the great obstacles for the sublime.

In Edmund Burkes’ book On the Sublime
that appeared at the end of the eight¬
eenth century, this English writer gives
a purely aesthetic explanation of beauty
and the sublime. He does this in terms of
the process of perception and the effect it
has on the perceiver: beauty presupposes
harmony and balance. The sublime is the
consequence of a certain painful or wry
emotion, caused by the work of art. It was
Turner who first expressed this point of
view in his paintings. The line of sepa¬
ration between beauty and the sublime
was further drawn during the First World
War by Marcel Duchamp, who more or

Beauty and the sublime

less declared war to beauty and harmony.
And this also happened in music. After
Debussy the composers turned away from
the tonal harmony that was considered
universal until then. A new music was
invented, composed to consistently reduce
the consonants used in the earlier har¬
monious, resounding music. This was the
atonal music, a form of music without
a fixed tonal centre. Representatives like
Schonberg, Stockhausen, Hindemith tried
to break through every soul-touching and
emotive experience.

It started from the idea that a complete
disregard for aesthetics was needed, be¬
cause beauty and the perception of beauty
could block the sublime — and thus the
realization that there was only a keeping
up of appearances and that ugliness was
the evidence of the appearance of beauty.
By rejecting and undermining beauty you
at least do not fall into the trap of suggest¬
ing the sublime, the absolute, the true that
could emanate from beauty.

After all, if something is connected to
beauty then it is subject to decay, so it can
never be a feature of the absolute good and
true. Beauty is and was suspicious, seduc¬
tive and treacherous.

Beautiful ugliness

With this reasoning, a plea was made for
the appreciation of ugliness up to and in¬
cluding the awareness that something can
be beautiful in its ugliness - the valuation
of decay and disintegration, the apprecia¬
tion of ruins; the raw, the unfinished, the
unpolished, the unsophisticated.

In architecture the architect Ashok Balotra
even performed the experiment of build¬
ing ‘dwellings of ruins’; by this one again
comes close to the Romanticism of Turner.
It is a little bit like the recognition of‘the
true’ in the Beast by Belle; persevering
through the ugliness and the rough exte¬
rior of the beast to find within it a white

stone or seed. Or to feel connected with
both, perhaps in the realisation that beauty
is the joy and the sorrow of the paradise
that is close and unreachable to us.

The universe is insensitive

And then there is a rehabilitation of the
appreciation of quiet beauty in the arts.

Again a thin thread is woven in the emo¬
tional life for the sublime. No more de-
monics, as in Ravel’s Bolero, which peace
has a downright witching atmosphere. And
not by inspired insistence on disharmony
and unrighteousness, wilderness and de¬
pravity, as Galina Oustvolskaya composed
in her penetrating compositions which are
described as ‘scratching in the soul’. Oust¬
volskaya, a pupil of Shostakovich, seriously
suffered from the fact that the universe
was indifferent to her complaints and that
her ‘primal scream’ of an unjust existence
went astray in the dark vastness.

A scream that probably stemmed from her
inability to see the beauty of it - some¬
thing the astronauts were able to reverse
after photographing the earth from outer
space. They underwent this experience of
seeing the earth from afar with an aes¬
thetic and emotional appreciation: ‘She
is beautiful’, they said, ‘our earth in the
middle of that vast space. It gives a feeling
of solidarity and unity’.

The thin line to the sublime in the feeling
runs parallel with a careful restoration of
the appreciation of beauty. The American
painter Robert Motherwell indicates in

The atonal music rejected
beauty because it was suspi¬
cious, seductive and treacherous

1946 that ‘the aesthetic takes on the func¬
tion of a medium’, a means to arrive at
the infinite background of feelings, and to
condense it to a perceptible object.

Are contradictions necessary for the
experience of the Sublime?

The writer Manfred van Doom indicates
that contradictions are necessary for a sub¬
lime overwhelming experience: ‘The vast¬
ness of the universe - which is immeasur¬
able and awesome - the deep black empty
and uninhabitable outer space - which is
horrible - against which stands the steel
blue planet Earth with its thin atmosphere,
brilliantly clear but horribly vulnerable.’
The image that he paints also says that the
importance of man in time-space sense, is
relative, marginal and unimportant. ‘He is
born of stardust and will return to stardust
- in an indifferent universe.’ He also agrees
with what Oustvolskaya so feared: the
indifference of the universe for her primal
scream. Van Doom describes the sublime
as an intense form of consciousness resem¬
bling happiness that can be experienced si¬
multaneously as contrasts like grief and joy
and can, at the same time, be transcended.

The flash of the sublime

The writer defines that moment as a flash
of the sublime in which opposites are
experienced as a unity:

‘The flash is like an electrical discharge
that is released when the positive and neg¬
ative side make contact and cause a spark.
This comparison makes it clear that you
need opposites to come to an experience
of the sublime. If you remain alone in the
plus side or only the minus side, no spark
is struck’.

The known contradictions that underlie
the sublime experience are beauty and ug¬
liness, joy and anxiety, finitude and infini¬
ty. Van Doom also considers the opposites:
space-time, full-empty, chaos-order, mat-

The ruin houses of Ashok
Balotra appreciate the raw,
the unfinished, the unpolished
and the unsophisticated

ter-mind, subject-object, I-other and cause-effect. But for him it can also be
about something beautiful that is so beautiful that it requires all your powers
to experience it. And thus beauty still seems to be an important element in
the experience of the sublime.

In which light can darkness not live?

There is a danger in assuming that it is necessary that one has to undergo
contradictions.

Nowadays modern approaches of interrelationships pose that love needs hate
and despair needs hope, as the dynamics of life itself. The most difficult thing
to maintain in a relationship is the love that was there at the beginning.
Sometimes it needs to be very dark to know that there is light.

Yet Pythagoras testifies already of a Light where no darkness can dwell. No
one experiencing love wants to hate nor do they want to experience the

Beauty and the sublime

despair that comes from hoping for the
pretence of love. What love is then con¬
nected to the sublime?

Which glow and heat accompany the sub¬
lime? Is that the fiery blaze of ascension? It
is said that it is the impersonal and infinite
Love which is connected to the elevation
of the sublime. Once truly enlightened
- once included in the unity of all in a
final transformed consciousness, man
has no need for friction anymore for his
continuity. That is when we are included
in the reality of unity, freedom and love,
into an inner stream that needs no inter¬
ruption. The preservation of that sublime,
transcendent state of love is not work that
depends on any contradictions. Sublime
love is the love of the immortal soul. A
firebird which is sublime...

Cosmic inner fire

When Jan van Rijckenborgh indicates that
the soul experiences an incredibly high
heat when it approaches the ‘Unground’ or
the ‘bottomless deep’, he calls it ‘sublime’.
The inner fire has then become a cos¬
mic fire, a fire of the unity of micros and
cosmos, a mild fire that cannot be ex¬
tinguished. It is a fire of renewal and of
continuity.

The light from that fire does not flicker.
This love does not need hate. The flames
of hate have no hold on Love because
they have distinct levels. Love has another
quality. Hate and evil can never be sublime
because they do not reach that level. Hate
and evil can sit deeply, but they do not take
root in the ‘bottomless deep.’

Jewel of a spiritual wedding

In the unity of the contradictions, the
sublime has formed itself in a curious fire
process, which can only adorn the beauty
of the two-unity, donated by the power of
the One who makes the two into One.

This is the way the fire renews itself in

nature (Ignus Naturae Renovator Integere,
INRI); the power of Christ reveals within
us the dynamic two-unity of a frictionless
and enlightened state, a divine dialectic.

Jan van Rijckenborgh speaks of a ‘jewel of
a spiritual wedding’ to adorn the beauty of
the two-unity.

The sublime, thirteenth aeon

In the alchemical wedding of Christian
Rosencreutz, beauty also plays a crucial
role. There she is the breath-taking un¬
touchable Lady Venus, the great beauty
that CRC sees with his senses, which is not
quite in accordance with the rules....

Where hatred and evil are awful but actual
figures in the world of men (and it is
terrible what people do to each other).
Consciousness, in the greater reality of the
immortal soul, goes through all layers, all
‘archons and aeons’ to the sublime aeon,
the thirteenth, while these forces do not
even notice its passing.

The beauty - that is: the immortal soul -
escapes those forces and powers because
she is of a higher order, namely the order
of‘the Venus of the mysteries revealed in
it’s nakedness, perfect and indescribably
beautiful and so unearthly and untouchable
that CRC stood transfixed’, as is described
in the fifth day of the Alchemical Wedding.

The beauty of Venus

How can something that is perfect and
indescribably beautiful, unearthly and
untouchable, still be a medium for the ul¬
timate sublime in the seventh phase of the
alchemy for the unity of the opposites and
the conjunction of the transfigured state?
Modern man in our cultural stage experi¬
ences that it is not possible, so he rejects
the beauty, even deliberately avoiding it and
aiming at a valuation of the decay; looking
for disharmony and diverting beauty from
art.

Even if you realize that true beauty is
not accessible, you do not need to fight it

Inexplicable beauty and love

In an earlier cultural stage, that rejection
did not yet play a role. In 1548, Agnolo
Firenzuola, an Italian poet and writer,
wrote Della bellezza della donne, a dialogue
about beauty in women, in which he
dedicated the first dozen pages to beauty
in all its aspects. Ultimately, the author
noted, that which constituted the real en¬
chantment of beauty was nothing like that
which he had written about in admiration
and wonder. Because, he says, the real
charm of the beauty of Venus is nothing
like that, but it is a ‘non so che’, a ‘I do
not know what’. Also, the French Enlight¬
enment thinker Montesquieu (1753) did
not deny the existence of the ‘invisible
enchantment’ that may be specific to
women and art. It’s like falling in love - we
can experience it but cannot know it. By
its very nature it is not intellectual, it is
incomprehensible and inexplicable.

In the twentieth century, the French
philosopher Vladimir Jankelevitch argues
that beauty does not have to be an object
of rejection and an object to rebel against.
Even if you realize that true beauty is not
accessible, you do not need to fight it or
even to dismiss it. If you cannot say that
beauty exists, then that does not mean that
she does not exist.

We can never truly perceive beauty in its
wholeness. We can only meet her in mul¬
tiple appearances. She shows herself only
in things and therefore always in different
forms. And that meeting can be valuable
and even be a prelude
This realization also lives in the more
recent cultural history and design for the

sublime. The French impressionist Paul
Cezanne voiced this when he stated that
the power that would enable us to rise
to the beauty (which is Eros) has disap¬
peared.

Our quest is to retrieve the power that
is in the inner nucleus of beauty and to
recover it.

Art, all art, can keep trying to display the
essence of beauty, either in simplicity,
or with more modern resources, or via
abstractions and social engagement, but
it must ultimately admit that beauty as a
medium needs an inner reflection. Lady
Venus should be internalized so that the
‘overwhelming of the sublime’ can take
place as an eternal enlightenment. That
inner ‘acquiring’ means nothing more or
less than working with the infinite power
of love, in the above-described extensive
field of heat.

Working with that energy makes ‘the tree
melt’ in the terminology of the Alchem¬
ical Wedding. If the fusion, the alchem¬
ical change that works as a synthesis, is
finished, then ‘Lady Venus will awaken and
be the mother of a king’, as the Alchemical
Wedding testifies. Sublime man is awak¬
ened - the king-priest.

The prayer: ‘to see with the eyes of love’
which is inspired by beauty, is finally
answered. ®

References

- De vleugels van weemoed, een pleidooi
voor schoonheid (The wings of nostalgia,
a plea for beauty), Francis Smets, Deystere
uitgeverij, 2014

- The Chinese Gnosis, J. van Rijckenborgh
and Catharose de Petri, Chapter 2, Wu-wei

- Het sublieme, het einde van de schoon¬
heid en een nieuw begin (The sublime, the
end of beauty and a new beginning), Hans
Hartog de Jager, Atheneum Polak, 2015.

- The Alchemical Wedding of CRC, part 2,

J. van Rijckenborgh

- Flitsen van het sublieme (Flashes of the
sublime), Manfred van Doom, uitgeverij
Indigo

- Ik weet niet wat (I do not know what),
Francis Smets

- De verhevenheid van de geestelijke
bruiloft of de innige ontmoeting met Chris-
tus (The loftiness of the spiritual wedding or
the intimate encounter with Christ), Jan van
Ruusbroec, Lannoo/Tielt/Amsterdam, 1977

- Alchemie als innerer Weg (Alchemy as an
inner path), Dr. Dagmar Uecker, 2007, DRP
Roesenkreuz Verlag

* The fusion of the opposites, such as Cu-
sanus calls it, at the same time, the seventh
phase of the alchemy the Conjuntio
**Beknopt woordenboek Latijn (Con¬
cise Dictionary Latin), F. Muller and E.H.
Renkema

***Christa Anbeek, Survival Art, chapter
Beauty and sublime

Beauty and the sublime

Iceberg stuck to a reef. Illustrated by
Kept. Back during an expedition to
the MacKenzie River 1824-1826

iy# ' ' ■

Study of Michelangelo

The eye and the witness

After death, for every human being the personality will be totally dissolved, The exception is stated
as: 'he who dies before he dies, will not be decreased when he is deceased," He will remain fully
conscious in a wondrous harmonious process, For him the source of his existence opens up, like
a far star and he will ultimately become at one with it, Jacob Boehme explains that then his soul
will become an eye that witnesses,

B r Beside our birth in this
world, there are two mo¬
ments which, viewed from a
higher cosmic point of view,
are significant for a person
in the Spiritual School. The first one is his
entrance, his first true contact. It is the
moment when his heart is touched and is
opened for what was hitherto unknown -
the Gnosis. This is a law of the Light, and
the laws of the Light do not change. It is
the moment that a human being knows
for sure: yes, this is it; this is what I have
so long and longingly looked for.

It means being touched or having been
touched and such a person inwardly
underwrites the truth of the very simple
butvery touching poem by Catharose de
Petri in her booklet Seven voices speak:
Lost as to the self
in the desert sands,

I feel I have been chosen
in ‘non-being’sense.

The light has truly found me
In my weary lot,
calls me from this gloomy place
to the Stream of God.

When you have truly experienced such
a moment, then your existence has been
noticed in the cosmic field-of-life! There,
a star is alighted and you are, as it were,
born again inwardly.

You don’t yet know anything of that field,
just like a new-born baby doesn’t con¬
sciously perceive anything of the world
around him. But in the planetary field of
life a Light has en-flamed. A wave of sup¬
port and love was liberated from the field
that corresponds with our original travel

documents which our microcosm received when it began its Grand Tour.
The second moment is your departure from these earthly abodes. It may be
that you will then pass over the border and come home again, back in the
land of your departure. That would be exceptionally fortunate, and then
you are able to continue your activities as a newly transformed personality,
powerfully inspired by the impulses of the spirit. It can also be, however
that you haven’t noticed any border during your recess on earth. Then ab¬
solutely nothing changes for you. All circumstances remain the same, all
problems remain the same, and all basic principles of earthly life will then
remain the same. If there is anything more hopeless from our point of
view, it is this situation.

For a while you may miss the people who were here on earth with you.

For if one thing is certain, it is sure that people are born, live, die and
re-incarnate in groups. After a shorter or longer period we shall accompa¬
ny each other again.

But in this second case something has actually changed: it is a ‘rien ne va
plus’. You are not able to act anymore in that realm.You will see everything
differently. A process of reflection and experience follows, but you can¬
not change anything in your life anymore. There is rest — it is sometimes
called ‘eternal rest’ — and is may seem like some summer land repose, but
slowly everything will dissolve again. From a doing, active person — do
you remember how busy you were? — you become once more a witness.
Everything is reeled off before your observation and you experience all the
goodness as well as all the misery that you have caused your fellow human
beings as if it were done to you. Fair is fair. And the Light says: ‘As I taught
Noah, so I teach you.’These laws do not change. It can sometimes be use¬
ful to put this real state of affairs before you.

Bearing witness

It is a fine expression, ‘bearing witness’. It means ‘providing proof’ and is
often used judicially.

The expression ‘to wit’ also means: specifically - particularly - expressly
- in other words, it brings something to the fore — it makes something
more clear.

There is also a remarkable parallel. Being a pupil is also a form of witness¬
ing, in the sense of giving evidence of one’s inner state. You could say it is
the essence of the path. The pupil sees how the Light does its work within
him and experiences a need to express his inner knowledge as a living
testimony. One can also say that the pupil dies while he lives. The pupil

undergoes a process that is very similar
to ‘the dissolving of the garments’ as it
is called, after our physical death. This
applies to each one of us, wholly in ac¬
cordance with the great laws and lines of
the planetary life cycle. But with what a
difference!

Such a pupil doesn’t have to witness how
his vehicles dissolve after death. He ob¬
serves something else: how the elementa¬
ry processes of the mental, the astral and
the ether life act in harmony. The fiery
storms of feelings, the life forces that
shoot here and there through the aural
field and that which pulverizes the inner
rest that he longs for, they all dissolve as
if proven an illusion. The inner battle be¬
tween the feelings of guilt, between the
see-saw of certainty and uncertainty, all
those mental battles we all know so well,
all those larger and smaller fires... they
are extinguished and the inner self comes
to rest. What at first demanded all our life
force now becomes balanced. And what is
in balance requires the least energy.

But he or she does not lose the source of
energy that has been allotted him. It has
risen like a sun. He experiences ‘the ap¬
proach of the fires of mercy’. A new clari¬
ty becomes part of him as well as a grow¬
ing inner certainty. Such a pupil becomes
strong, in balance, ready to support the
Work. And amazed he wonders, how it is
possible that he is so favoured - that he is
allowed to experience this surprising in¬
ner lightness - this simplicity and rest.

Fleeing the world

At one time some masters asked Jakob
Boehme derisively the question: ‘Tell us
shoemaker, are you sure we are the cho¬
sen of God?’

Boehme replied: ‘It is not the habit of the
chosen ones to flaunt this. It is rather to
reveal oneself in the transience of matter,
which is full of labour pains and dan-

Would the soul be able to
know God without the world,
then the world would not
have been created for her

gers. And there is the seal of God that is printed on their forehead, which
unseals time. For the chosen one is not made for just the one moment,
but for thousands of years, and he is born in the time of the great year to
reveal the wonders that God has in mind. The end and the beginning of a
new age of humanity have been prepared for a long time, and we are right
in the middle of it.’

The serious seeker who pores over the biographies of women and men of
God will find many such testimonies. Let us remain yet for one more mo¬
ment with the shoemaker from Silesia, Germany. For the above-mentioned
conversation continued, or rather a tumult arose because of it, and they all
spoke together.

They cried that Boehme declared something very different from what was
written in the Scriptures. There were those who said that he was danger¬
ous and a heretic. Others accosted him why he did not flee this world and
reject it, like the saints of the church history, but that he rather revered it.
They accused him: ‘Don’t we all know that the soul, if it wants to know
God, must flee this world?’

But Boehme was combative: ‘Would the soul be able to know God without
the world, then the world would not have been created for her. One must
not flee the world, one must maintain her.’

A young understanding voice then called out:

‘How else could a human being be able to radiate in all his delightful char¬
acteristics, without the resistance of the world? Honour, love and courage
only shine because the world puts itself darkly opposite these.’

Balthasar Walter, known as a doubter and a dissenter, who had restlessly
wandered the world in search ofTruth, and whose tongue was feared, was
also present at this debate. It seemed he had finally found somebody who
forcefully and with certainty testified to the Truth. Someone who descend¬
ed so deeply, that he had stumbled across the foundation of creation. Wal¬
ter said: ‘I have never been so happy in any country or among any scholars
as at this moment. Until today I did not realize that inner knowledge
makes for such happiness.’

And Boehme, who saw into the depth of the soul of this restless wanderer,

The eye and the witness

felt a great affection for him, while he
said:

‘Joy is the greatest divine gift possible to
a human being. For as soon as the new
being awakens, his countenance is also
full of joy. As an outwardly living human
being sees the outer world, so the reborn
human being sees the inner divine world
wherein he lives. Thereafter God’s joyful
spirit soon leads his soul into His divine
school of Wisdom, and there it learns
more than in all schools of this world.’
This school is not restricted to the
Spiritual School, but is at one with it,
and it encompasses all true schools. They
have one communal focus, which is the
nucleus that is Christ.

Our souls are being instructed, and we
are the witnesses.

We are reconnected with the Wisdom,
and we are the witnesses.

Our souls grow and flourish, and we are
the amazed and astonished witnesses.
What else is Christian Rosycross but
a witness during the seven days of his
journey?

Full of amazement he observes the great
process of the Alchemical Wedding, and is
exceedingly glad because of it. And then
at the end, when he thinks that the fol¬
lowing morning he must become a gate¬
keeper, he finds he has come home.

Forty questions to the soul

The same Balthasar Walter in 1620 posed forty questions to Jacob Boehme,
all with regard to the soul. They were however all questions of the mind,
like: Where does the soul come from? Wherein does it breathe? How does
it come into the body? Which glorified bodies does it know? It made Boe¬
hme sigh but he has answered them all anyway, for he who asks makes
revelation possible and thus has a right to an answer.

He stated: ‘Not that I know more than any other, but in order that we gain
insight in our own thoughts, our sincere seeking and the longing of our
heart, it has been given to me to answer you.’

One of Balthasar Walter’s questions, the fifth one, is: ‘What does the soul
look like, and what shape is it?’

And Jakob Boehme answers: ‘As a twig cut from a tree, grows again in the
shape of that tree, and as a child may bear the image of the mother, so the
soul has as its first principle the shape of a ball or sphere. Like its origine it
has the shape of an eye. And it cannot be otherwise, for there is nothing in
it that can make it different. And yet it is also twofold, like a heart wherein
a cross is.

Secondly, in the second principle, it is a spirit, a perfect image, like the
outer human being.

And thirdly, in the third principle, it is a mirror of the entire world, of
everything that exists in heaven and on earth. Every characteristic of each
creature lies therein, for the mirror is like the firmament and the stars.

As a crown it is, and in it is the number, or the course of life, of the outer
human being; the end of his life, with all the happiness and unhappiness
that may befall the outer human being.’

Thus we may indeed state that the soul is an eye that perceives,
a spirit which guides, and a mirror of all forces in the world.

The human being stands in this threefold life. Separately each life is a mys¬
tery or an Arcanum, says Boehme, a secret for the other two, and it longs
for the other two, which is exactly the aim of creation. And the Absolute
One, the infinite Creator, the heavenly substance, longs for this mirror, be¬
cause this world, seen in its multiplicity of three, is an absolute likeness to
God’s being and substance.

Potentially, no, rather in reality, the Deity
is manifested in an earthly likeness, says
Boehme. For it is out of the question
that the great miracle of the Arcanum,
or the hidden secret, can be opened in
the world of angels. After all, that angelic
world was born entirely within, and out
of love. What is within and breathes in
the Love, only knows bliss, but not the
force of desire, and therefore cannot do
otherwise than spread God’s love, and in
that way it supports the lower realms.

But in this earthly world, where love
and wrath (or resistance and anger) are
mixed, in this world the miracle is possi¬
ble! Therein a human being can be born
twice! Boehme continues:

‘And in this world the twofold birth is
possible - the miracle can take place. For
the whole outer being longs strongly for
the inner one. It searches for its primeval
image. It longs for freedom, to be liberat¬
ed from his restrictions, that is: the igno¬
rance of the other two elements.

It is as if Jacob Boehme realises that this is
getting too complicated for us.

Therefore he concludes by explaining it
thus:

‘You do understand that all forms in
nature long for the Light? Because this
longing produces the oil (he means: the
substance) wherein the Light can burn
and be known, for it stems originally
from meekness.’

Thus, first of all we need to know about
our own life, which is lived in the middle
of the fire, for life burns in fire.

And then, secondly, we need to immerse
ourselves in the longing of, and for, the
Love that originally arose from the Word
and goes up to the highest heaven, the at¬
mosphere of the angels, of the pure souls,
where the heart of God goes out to us in
great force, in a great longing for us, and
thus He pulls us into his mystery.

And thirdly we need to study and fath¬

om the ‘magical kingdom’ of this world, for that also burns within us and
submerges us in its Force, into its wonders, for it must reveal itself! For
the human being has been created, has been brought forth, so that he may
reveal this great threefold mystery, and bring the miracle to the Light, and
give it form, according to the eternal wisdom. This is how Jacob Boehme
stated it.

Aren’t these words wonderfully close to the words of the classical Rosy-
cross order? It is as if we are allowed a different, knowing view into the
burial temple where the brothers Rosycross came across the unblemished
body of Christian Rosycross, the matrix of the new human being.

Let us, with this treasure in hand, remain very practical. We stand in a torn
world, and there is little to be seen around us of a glorious and harmonic
world. But this was also the case with Boehme in his age! In his time and
surroundings the all-destroying Thirty Year War raged. On top of that all
his life he suffered attacks on his work, on his person and on his integrity.
Yet he kept on pointing to these revelations, and testified of the profound
truths of Life and the Kingdom - of the small as well as the Great world.
We rise above all disharmony, all turmoil of battle, if we understand these
three principles:

1. That we only have to observe. That is the meaning of‘witnessing’.

2. That there is a guiding spirit, a principal element that is a thousand fold
more secure and loving that our own spirit, and encompasses it entirely.

3. That the mirror can reflect the miracle of creation, because the alche¬
mist - which we are as pupils of the spirit - makes all forces flow together
harmoniously.

As we are reborn in the inner world, the Spiritual School offers to serve
and guide us by means of its living body. It pulls us, magnetically, into its
Mystery.

Secondly: In return this School trusts us entirely, in the measure wherein
we allow the depth of our search to descend into our personal deepest
primeval origin. The primeval origin, the Ungrund, where we no longer
experience the positive and negative, the fires of mercy and resistance as
terrifying limitations, but as the manifesting forces of creation. Who looks
into that mirror sees the Deity and the eternal Source of Power, which also
burn within him.

Thirdly the new idea dawns on us that this exceptional earthly life is here
to overshadow us, within and without, above and below, entirely in the
miracle of the kingdom which, as we now know, is threefold, as our soul,
our microcosm is threefold.

It is an eye, that perceives.

It is a spirit, which guides and leads

and it is a mirror of all the forces in the world.

Recreate the world, your world, with the help of the threefold magic of
the kingdom. Make your life complete. Not at a later date, not at any other
place, no, in the eternity that is today. And know: there is a star from far
away, burning in peace that watches over you. ®

The eye and the witness

World images

Those who think that wisdom is nothing more than that
which can be understood by the mind, and that happiness
is nothing more than what can be achieved, are still far
removed from the true, eternal and infinite wisdom.

The highest wisdom is to know... that the things that are not
attainable for the intellect can still be attained in a manner
that completely surpasses any intellectual understanding.
Nicolas de Cusa

There will be an extended article about Nicolas de Cusa in
the next edition of Pentagram.

Accompanying the world images

"My landscapes to date show combinations of land and
industry in all of their complex and layered meanings, like the
unintended consequence of the human impact on a vulner¬
able environment", says Philip Govedare. His paintings are
both a reaction to and an interpretation of the world. In a
mixture of beauty, anxiety and doubt his "Skies"and Exca¬
vation" show a picture of the past and at the same time a
projection into the future. I am worried about the state of the
landscape and nature in our world. My landscapes also try to
provoke a reaction from the public."

Philip lives and works in Seattle, USA.
www.philipgovedare.com

LAMBSPRINCK

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Abraham Lambsprinck

The PhilosoDhers' Stone

From the late Middle Ages and ever since the Renaissance the
alchemists started to illustrate their treatises, First somewhat reserv¬
edly and dilettante, later with ever more imagination and artistry. In
particular in the sixteenth and seventeenth century jewels of alchemic
engravings appeared on the book market, It was a late, desperate
flowering, because a century later alchemy was rather languishing
and a century later it was declared dead by the newly developed
physic sciences and almost forgotten,

TREATISE OF THE
NOBLE GERMAN PHI¬
LOSOPHER ABRAHAM
LAMBSPRINCK
A STUDY OF INNER
ALCHEMY FROM
THE SEVENTEENTH
CENTURY

One of these pearls is the treatise that we give and discuss here. It contains, apart from
the title page and the coat of arms of the author, fifteen very beautifully designed
engravings. Each displays a theme from this alchemical work. Moreover every one of
these engravings is provided with a clear explanatory text that is very readable on its
own and therefore a good introduction to alchemy in itself.

The identity of the author who calls himself 'Lambsprinck' is not known. Nor do we know exactly
when he lived and when the treatise The Philosopher's' Stone' was written. We know that
Lambsprinck's treatise was first written in German, and that it already existed as an illustrated
manuscript before it was printed. Lucas Jennings published the text with illustrations in 1625, in
a collected work, Museum Hermeticum. In that same year Jennings also published a German edi¬
tion. Also Herman a Sande, the next publisher added the treatise of Lambsprinck in the Museum
Hermeticum in 1677. It is this Latin edition of the Museum Hermeticum that is used for our trans¬
lation as well as the English translation by Arthur Edward Waite taken from the website: http://
www.sacred-texts.com/alc/hm1/hm113.htm. Finally, the graphic artist responsible for the wonder¬
ful engraving is probably Mathieu Merian, who allegedly made the fifty engravings of the Atalanta
Fugiens, and who illustrated works of Robert Fludd. But there is no absolute certainty. It is believed
that Lambsprinck was a goldsmith or a nobleman, because his family name has a coat of arms.

But one can also see a symbolic interpretation of its name, likewise on the peinting 'The Lamb of
God' by the Van Eyck brothers, where you see the lamb displayed with the source of life in front.

The four elements

We usually depict the four elements in a traditional way as some state of aggregation,
an interpretation that we also find in the Turba Philosophorum, the oldest known al¬
chemic text: earth is solid, water is fluid; air is gaseous, and fire is etheric. But anoth¬
er interpretation is also possible, one that goes back to the oldest myths of creation.

In the beginning there is chaos, usually depicted as an infinite sea, a mass of water or
an ocean. From this chaos order is created by the Creator. The land and the air above
it separate the waters beneath and above the firmament. The fire is formed by the sun
and the stars in the firmament. Lambsprinck uses the four elements in this way in the
order of his images and texts.

The editor of this article has copied the images and made them into separate cards to
order them in a meaningful way. He came to the following diagram (see picture) that
bears a great resemblance to the staff of the Hierophant from the tarot cards: a cross
with three crossbars.

The water is illustrated in the lowest picture as a sea with two fishes. Above it a man
fights a dragon. That is the transition from water to earth. The earth is displayed in the
lowest crossbar. One sees three pictures that illustrate a forest, each with two animals
that live on land: a deer and a unicorn, two lions, a dog and a wolf. Then follows a
dragon biting it’s own tail. This forms the transition from earth to air. The element
air we see in the two illustrations with the birds. Then follows, as the central figure
in the diagram: the king on his throne. He symbolizes the crowning of the ‘Lesser
Mysteries’ - The Small Work - and this leads to the formation of the white stone. The
roasted salamander is the transition to the element fire. The illustrations that follow
do not depict animals, but human figures. They lead to the crowning of the 'Greater
Mysteries’ - the Great Works - and finally to the formation of the tincture and the red
stone, the ultimate Philosopher’s Stone.

Quicksilver

Of all the metals that were known in antiquity, quicksilver, also called mercury, is
the only one that remains liquid under normal ambient temperature. It is unstable, it
pulls together into globules if poured onto a smooth surface and it vaporises quick¬
ly. In alchemy quicksilver is the basic raw material of all metals, due to the fact that
metals typically melt at high temperatures and then take the form that quicksilver al¬
ready has at ordinary temperatures. In alchemy the essence of quicksilver is the rapid
exchangeability between dissolution and solidification- it is volatile as well as solid.
Many metaphors are associated with this peculiarity. The volatile raises up, spreads
itself, is centripetal, and centres itself. These properties make them a very useable
metaphor for the psychic life. It symbolises the two aspects of consciousness. On the
one hand, it denotes a complete absorption, getting lost in a perception, On the other
hand a concentration and a fixation on that perception.

If we succeed in bringing together these two seemingly opposite aspects of con¬
sciousness it creates a synthesis between instinct and intuition, between feeling and
thinking. Being completely absorbed in a perception and at the same time retaining a

Abraham Lambsprinck

red stone

tincture

11 - 12-13
quinta essentia

FIRE

7 - 8-9

AIR

white stone

3 - 4-5

EARTH

putrefaction

WATER

concentrated and subtle impression may, as by a miracle, reveal in us a region, open an
inner space where we can abide spiritually Such a space is full of meaning but without
words, somewhat like a lucid dream. It is more than an insight - it is inspiration. We
can draw from it as long as we can hold on to it. It is a subtle process not to be dis¬
tracted by images or associations of ideas, otherwise the source is shut and the inspira¬
tion disappears. It is the art of learning how one can open those sources of inspiration
and retain them in order to discover which regions they unlock.

The principle of collecting inspiration from various sources and their capture in a
fixed idea is the principle of the formation of the ‘Philosopher’s Stone’. Mercury is
hermaphroditic, it has a double nature that is expressed in the concepts ‘sulfur’ and
‘mercur’ or ‘sol’ and Tuna’ or ‘man’ and ‘woman’ or ‘fire’ and ‘water’ or ‘soul’ and
‘spirit’. Quicksilver is hermaphroditic because its essence consists of a certain sen¬
sitivity of perception, the mercur, and a fixed core of understanding, the sulfur, in
which and around that which is observed, the inspiration, is centred, held in place
and brought to a specific form, the salt. Without such a fixed core of understanding on
which attention is focused, the intuition vaporizes and is of no further use.

Thus mercur, sulfur and salt form the basic components of quicksilver. We will see
this theory often in the treatise of Lambsprinck. The symbol for quicksilver is the sign
of the planet Mercury. It is composed of three symbols above each other: a moon
lying on top of a sun with a point, above a cross. The moon that points upwards as
an open bowl depicts the recipient, the open principle. It is called mercur in alchemy.

It is usually volatile or a liquid. The sun, a circle with a centre, is the principle of the
concentration, of the ‘point focus’. In alchemy this is sulfur. It is linked to heat and fire
and solid and tenacity. The cross is the salt. It is that which forms and crystallizes under
the influence and cooperation of the mercur and sulfur. In this way mercur, sulphur
and salt together form a trinity that we call quicksilver. It is, together with the prima
materia, the basis for the ‘Philosophers’ Stone’.

Here we see depicted the Monas Hieroglyphic of John Dee. For him this was the sym¬
bol of the synthesis of the alchemic work but also much more than that. Once again
we see here the symbol for Mercury with underneath it the symbol of Aries, a fire
sign. Moon, sun and cross form the hermetic vase, in which the work of the transmu¬
tation takes place, with the fire underneath.

abdomen, as a spark of life, of
deep ineradicable vitality. It is
the turning point of the metab¬
olism, where matter is convert¬
ed into life, into an organism.
As experience it is a form of
intensity, sensitivity, vitality
and also unrest. For the con¬
sciousness it is the perplexity.

It is the deepest point of our
incarnation in a body.

Prima materia

It is difficult to explain what the prima materia is. It is described as something of little
value, an everyday thing that is found in the street. And yet this is the most precious
thing there is. It is chaos at the start. One must descend deep into the bowels of the
earth to find it. It is something that you overlook, in deeply poetic terms: ‘I am a grain
of sand on an eternal shore’. The consciousness is on the border of sensitivity and
awareness. Where life adapts itself to matter. And where consciousness and awareness,
that is: the spiritual or inner side of life, turns into matter, the outer side. It is a deep,
instinctive level, described as the first impression that the world makes on us, when
we first see the daylight. That deep, instinctive level is like a sea in which our ordinary
consciousness drowns after it has captured a last glimpse of perfect awareness.

That beach, or that eternal shore with that grain of sand, lies somewhere deep in the

Abraham Lambsprinck

The Sea is the Body

the two Fishes are Soul and Snirit

The Sages will tell you
That two fishes are in our sea
Without any flesh or bones.

Let them be cooked in their own water;

Then they also will become a vast sea,

The vastness of which no man can describe.

Moreover, the Sages say

That the two fishes are only one, not two;

They are two, and nevertheless they are one ,
Body, Spirit, and Soul.

Now, I tell you most truly,

Cook these three together,

That there may be a very large sea.

Cook the sulphur well with the sulphur,

And hold your tongue about it:

Conceal your knowledge to your own advantage,
And you shall be free from poverty.

Only let your discovery remain a close secret.

Lambsprinck calls it a sea with two
fishes. The fishes are the two centres of
consciousness in an ocean of the uncon¬
scious - spirit and soul in an elementary
stage

At the moment we are born, everything
is present: the world, the universe. We
perceive it in its totality and without
restriction. All influences, from close by
and from afar reach our completely open
consciousness at the same time. But we
cannot comprehend it, because we have

nothing yet in which to contain it. There
is only the fully developed sympathet¬
ic nervous system, which regulates the
basic functions of our body, which can
react.

That changes quickly by our nutrition
and education. Jugs and pitchers are
handed to us in order to collect what we
perceive. By these restrictions we are able
to contain and order our perceptions,
first and foremost what is in our direct
environment. But the first complete total

impression gets lost. In the
first place by our education
but further on the way also
by frustration. Life deceives
us. Our trust is violated, our
love hurt, our natural securi¬
ty broken down.

Our ability to catch ‘first
impressions’ is encapsulat¬
ed. These impressions are
enshrouded by a toad or a
dragon of latent stress that is

formed within us and nestles in our bod¬
ies and our guts. What was first a source
of inspiration and creativity has now
become a hindrance that blocks our own
initiative and surrenders and enslaves us
to external influences. In a certain sense
branding has been applied to our cen¬
tres of sensitivity - seals that are almost
impossible to break. There is one source
of creativity that remains functioning: in
our sexual organs our creativity remains
to manifest itself materially, our physical
procreation remains assured.

That first moment, that first impres¬
sion, is one of‘being there’. Being in
its totality, as a monad, as a mirror of
the universe. It is an experience into the
deepest level. That is why the spiritual
transformation has to start from the
primal vital impression. This sits in us
as a first impression, sealed and locked
in by our education, conditioning and
traumatic experiences. The seals of the
world around us are symbolized in the

planets and therefore also in the metals.
Seals are imprinted in us because we are
impressed by certain powers and forces.
In this way we lose our own initiative
and are no longer able to form our own
first impressions. They are obstacles
that prevent us from seeing the light
of the source directly for we are always
standing in their shadow. Our ‘source
of life’ is locked behind these seals and
the ‘water of life’ is led through certain
channels and limitations and exploited
by powers which enslave our vitality for
their own advantage. To free this source
again, we have to break these seals. This
task is almost impossible. Very special
circumstances are needed to do this. We
must comprehend the nature of every
seal and stop the intimidation and not
be impressed by it. Only then the energy
is released that one can call the prima
materia and that can ennoble one to a
‘total insight’. Freeing oneself in this way
is always subversive because it is against

It is the purpose of a mystery school to create the circumstances in which people can come
together and disregard the limitations of the world, so that they can be themselves and not
their profession, their function or disability, special class, or whatever. Then the twelve types of
personality of the astrological zodiac can express themselves freely and relate to each other as
Man. That is the beginning of freemasonry.

Whoever comes to the school discards his worldly personality. He can no longer impress it on
others and is no longer impressed himself. Something must develop freely from whatever arises
in the group, but which also transcends the group. Without that impression everyone's intelli¬
gence and specific ability comes automatically to light: they form the basis of the possibilities of
the group.

If the twelve star signs come together, no longer hindered by the intimidations of the spheres
of the planets, then a radiation can take place through their circle. A purified atmosphere has
appeared, in which a new radiation is tangible. This is new and at the same time familiar, be¬
cause It is always present. Usually It is mixed with the impurities of ordinary life, which tarnish
that subtle energy with phantasy and 'dispersion'. In her pure form that energy shows the
essences of the zodiacal signs and thereby the nature and meaning of the circle. The partici¬
pants may interpret what they perceive according to their essence. They are mirrors for each
other and they complement each other. Together they form a complete picture of the higher
worlds. If the circle is sufficiently stable, another activity starts. Another plan is shown, another
direction, a possible evolution.

the generally accepted Taw of
the world’ and the ordinary
way of matter, as far as it im¬
prisons us. It is necessary to
go that deep. Otherwise one
frees oneself from certain
seals but remains exploited
by others.

That ‘first impression of
birth’ is a metaphor that
everyone can recognise. As a
matter of fact the conditions
of that moment are always
present in the here and the
now. It is possible to be
enlightened in that ‘here and
now’. Now is Here. In this
moment. At this place! On
earth and in my life. Eternity
is the ‘now’ of the cosmos.
Those two coincide, are one
and the same. I sit between
‘now’ and ‘eternity’, with my
limitations that I can trans¬
form into possibilities and
opportunities, qualities of
perception and openness and
intelligence.

Here we refer to the distinct
subtle bodies. This requires
a specific inner work. This is
the beginning of the alchem¬
ic workplace. The more the
work progresses, the more
new possibilities of feeling,
perceiving and understanding
arise. A language is formed
that can capture and explain
it all.

Abraham Lambsprinck

Putrefaction

The Sage says

That a wild beast is in the forest,

Whose skin is of the blackest dye.

If any man cut off his head,

His blackness will disappear,

Aid give place to a snowy white.

Understand well the meaning of this head:

The blackness is called the head of the Raven;

As soon as it disappears,

A white colour is straightway manifested;

It is given this name, despoiled of its head.

When the Beast s black hue has vanished in a black
smoke,

The Sages rejoice

From the bottom of their hearts;

But they keep it a close secret,

That no foolish man may know it.

Yet unto their Sons, in kindness of heart,

They partly reveal it in their writings;

And therefore let those who receive the gift
Enjoy it also in silence,

Since God would have it concealed.

When the prima materia is exposed and
touched, the dragon that guards it ap¬
pears. This is the stage of the putreficatio,
or the putrefication.

One has to cut off the head of the dragon
while he sleeps, but it must still be slight¬
ly awake, because the stone only becomes
‘nobl’e when a little bit of the soul of
the dragon stays within it, and that is ‘the
hate of the monster while it feels that it is
dying’. An overwhelming and incredible
amount of stress and strain, the history

of a lifelong suppression and repulsion
emerges and overwhelms the conscious¬
ness of the adept. The black stage has now
begun. The toad that ate ‘the first impres¬
sion’ even before we were conscious of
it, now spits out the four elements which
the alchemist uses to work with. Mass¬
es of impressions, images, memories,
connections, insights are crowding into
the consciousness. The quicksilver, the
mercury, is still very chaotic and must yet
be organized and tamed.

In the Body there is Soul (deer
and Spirit (unicorn

The Sages say truly

That two animals are in this forest:

One glorious, beautiful, and swift,

A great and strong deer;

The other an unicorn.

They are concealed in the forest,

But happy shall that man be called
Who shall snare and capture them.

The Masters shew you here clearly
That in all places

These two animals wander about in forests
(But know that the forest is but one).

If we apply the parable to our Art,

We shall call the forest the Body.

That will be rightly and truly said.

The unicorn will be the Spirit at all times.

The deer desires no other name

But that of the Soul; which name no man shall take

away from it.

He that knows how to tame and master them by Art,
To couple them together,

And to lead them in and out of the forest,

May justly be called a Master.

For we rightly judge

That he has attained the golden flesh,

And may triumph everywhere;

Nay, he may bear rule over great Augustus

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Now we are no longer in the sea, the
element water. The body is now a forest
on land; this is the element earth. The
deer, devoted to the goddess Diana, the
Moon, is the soul, the volatile Mercury;
the surprise of insights, memories, and
so on. The widely branched antlers are a
metaphor for the openness and the out¬
ward directedness of the attention and
the mental perception. If there is nothing
fixed in return, then all those insights
vanish like a haze, which overwhelms

for a bit but will be forgotten afterwards.
A core of fixed concentration is needed
now around which attention can create
order and precipitate. This principle is
symbolized by the unicorn. His horn is
the pointed concentration around which
the chaos is ordered and comes to rest.
The deer is being chased by the hunters
and flees away: it is the volatile princi¬
ple, the mercur. The unicorn is captured
by using the bait of a pure virgin. If the
unicorn perceives the pureness of the

virgin he lays his horn in her
lap and falls asleep. In this
way the hunters may capture
the beast. The unicorn is
centripetal, it is the Sulphur,
the fixed principle. Deer and
unicorn form together the
quicksilver in its first, vola¬
tile stage of the seeing, the
insight.

Abraham Lambsprinck

Here you behold a great marvel 4

- two lions are joined into one

The Sages do faithfully teach us

That two strong lions, to wit, male and female,

Lurk in a dark and rugged valley.

These the Master must catch,

Though they are swift and fierce,

And of terrible and savage aspect.

He who, by wisdom and cunning,

Can snare and bind them,

Aid lead them into the same forest,

Of him it may be said with justice and truth
That he has merited the meed of praise
before all others,

Aid that his wisdom transcends that
of the worldly wise.

The impact of the release of the prima
materia continues in the emotional life.
We see the image of two lions in a forest.
The male lion is the red lion, the sul¬
phur; the lioness is the green lion, the
mercur. The lion is symbolic of the wake¬
fulness, the gatekeeper, but also as king
of the animals of an uncompromising
sincerity. On this level the emotional life
is stripped of all false impressions from
the outside world.

The total emotional life, with all its

emotions, is dissolved and as dead. That corn. The mind is now also a

which is real and of ourselves will regen- conscience.

erate and sprout anew. The old emotional

life, which was a vessel full of conflicting

emotions, has become now a ‘mind’, a

tranquil space where one can really ‘feel’.

Emotions are shut us off; real Feeling
opens and is a source of perception of
qualities, knowledge and fine nuances.

The mind is now able to judge in all
sincerity the insights and inspirations
from the stage of the deer and the uni-

The Body is mortified and rendered white,
then joined to Soui and Spirit by being

saturated with them

Alexander writes from Persia

That a wolf and a dog are in this field,

Which, as the Sages say ;

Are descended from the same stock,

But the wolf comes from the east,

And the dog from the west.

They are full of jealousy,

Fury, rage, and madness;

One kills the other,

And from them comes a great poison.

But when they are restored to life,

They are clearly shewn to be
The Great and Precious Medicine,

The most glorious Remedy upon earth,

Which refreshes and restores the Sages,

Who render thanks to God, and do praise Him.

Mortification (killing), salification (whit¬
ening) and imbibition (penetrating) of
the body united with the soul and spirit.
The influence of the prima materia
continues further and more deeply. The
dog and the wolf represent the level of
the instinct and the will. The dog was
formerly a wolf, but in the course of
time he has been domesticated and has
adapted to humans, their living world
and culture. He has become the guardian
of goods and property of his master. He

is praised for his loyalty, and despised
for his servility. Contrary, the wolf is the
ruthless instinctive primordial nature of
the human being, which eats everything,
even earth when he is hungry.

Wolf and dog are sometimes vehemently
in conflict with each other and fight each
other to the death. Sometimes man has
to make heart-breaking choices, especial¬
ly when he has to go against all estab¬
lished values and views of his surround¬
ing environment. Sometimes one needs

ruthless courage to choose
for his primordial nature.

The wolf that comes from
the east where the sun rises
is the Sulphur; the dog is the
mercur and is devoted to the
moon. The wolf is, in the Si¬
berian shamanistic tradition,
the guardian of the human
species and is voluntarily do¬
mesticated to fulfil his task.

Abraham Lambsprinck

The Mercury is
precipitated or sublimed

The three images of the animals in the
forest represent the element earth. The
forest is the body, within which resides
the spirit and the soul. The animals to¬
gether form the interacting purification
of the prima materia in three ‘centres’,
the three ways in which quicksilver
manifests itself: in the thinking (deer
and unicorn), the feeling (red and green
lion), the will (wolf and dog).

Together these three centres form also a
‘quicksilver’.The receiving mercur is the
intelligent thinking; the ordering middle
is the sulphur of the mind. The decision
is recorded in the instinctive centre of
the will, the salt. The three centres to¬
gether form an autonomous quicksilver:
a human being who has built an inner
space, who has an inner working place
or has resurrected a temple in himself
that can function autonomously, free
from the influences of the world around
him. In this working place of inner life
it is possible to break the seals that are
placed on the soul by the archons.

A savage Dragon lives in the forest, He quickly consumes his venom,

Most venomous he is, yet lacking nothing: For he devours his poisonous tail.

When he sees the rays of the Sun and its bright fire, All this is performed on his own body,

He scatters abroad his poison,

And hies upward so fiercely

That no living creature can stand before him,

Nor is even the Basilisk equal to him.

He who hath skill to slay him, wisely
Hath escaped from all dangers.

Yet all venom, and colours, are multiplied
In the hour of his death.

His venom becomes the great Medicine.

From which flows forth glorious
Balm,

With all its miraculous virtues.
Hereat all the Sages do loudly rejoice.

Mercury is in the correct way chemically precipi¬
tated or sublimed

The Ouroboros shows that a cycle is
completed. It concerns a process that
must perhaps be repeated several times
but every time in another way. It is a
cycle that takes place between the fire
spewing dragon and the Ouroboros. In
the gnostic sense, the Ouroboros was the
world snake; the ‘leviathan’ that circled
the material world, which means the sev¬
en spheres of the seven known planets of
our solar system. Together they form the
world of matter. Outside it is the circle
of the twelve signs of the zodiac wherein
also the earthly paradise from Genesis is
situated, within it the tree of life.
According to certain gnostic traditions,
man was formed by the archons of the
seven planets. They made a man, a sort of
golem, out of clay and matter. These crea¬
tors of the lower material world however
could not create Life. They had to seduce
the ‘true creator’, the agatodaimon, with
a deceptive trick so that a sparkle of life
would descend in the golem that was
created by them. Therefore, the man
came to life, dominated however, by the
properties assigned by the archons. It
is the task for the adept to learn to see
within himself the difference between
the spark of true life and the material
chains wherein the archons keep him
imprisoned. These impressions stem
from ancient Egypt and the rituals for the
dead in which the soul of the deceased
rose out of the earthly spheres through
the spheres of the archons that were
guarding the portals to ‘heaven’. At every
portal one was held accountable. One
had to know the name of the gatekeeper,
what he was representing, and distance
oneself from negative properties of that
sphere, thus breaking the seal.

And so man goes through the assembly of the spheres:

On the first sphere he hands over his capacity for growth and change,
On the second sphere, the instrument of evil, the now useless violence,
On the third, the deceit of desire which has become powerless.

On the fourth, the outward display of dominance,

On the fifth, the impious hubris of mindless, crazy boldness,

On the sixth, the evil impulses of wealth, which now have no effect,

On the seventh sphere the lies that create traps,

And then, stripped of astral influences,

Man, cleaned of astral influences, comes

In the eighth sphere in possession of his essential Self,

And together with the spiritual entities, he sings the Father's Praise.

The Gospel of Thomas by G. Quispel p. 182, Corpus Hermeticum 1, 25-26

The journey of the soul after death, through the planetary spheres, has in alchemy
become an inner life's journey, in order to liberate oneself from the seven planetary
seals.

So the Ouroboros represents the boundary between the world of man bound to
matter, and the world above that, the circle of the zodiac and the place of paradise.

Abraham Lambsprinck

We hear two birds in the forest 7

A nest is found in the forest,

In which Hermes has his brood;

One fledgling always strives to fly upward,

The other rejoices to sit quietly in the nest;

Yet neither can get away from the other.

The one that is below holds the one that is above,
Aid will not let it get away from the nest,

As a husband in a house with his wife,

Bound together in closest bonds of wedlock.

So also do we rejoice at all times,

That we hold the female eagle fast in this way,
And we render thanks to God the Father.

In the first image of the element air a
tree is pictured with a nest in it. It is the
philosopher’s tree, the alchemical version
of the tree of life in paradise. In the nest
there are two birds: one that can fly and
rise to gain inspiration from the higher
realms. The other bird remains in the nest
with truncated wings. It takes care that
the former bird will return to the nest.
The flying bird is the mercur, the sitting
bird the sulphur. Together they produce
the philosophical egg from which the

‘Philius Philosophorum’, the young
Hermes, the new inner man, is born.

The element air opens a subtle sphere in
the mental, intelligent realm. This sphere
must be explored and opened before
one continues working in it. To enter this
sphere one has to abandon, as it were, his
body; like leaving one’s shoes at the door
before entering a sacred place. What takes
place in this space is very tangible for the
purified spirit and the clear conscious¬
ness and of very great intensity. Matters

that can only be abstract in
the ordinary world, become
very tangible here, direct and
experienced. It is a sphere of
wordless intelligence. Here
one learns the language of
the birds. The snail under the
tree depicts a relationship:
the material level is a snail
that slowly crawls over the
earth.

Here are two birds,
great and strong

In India there is a most pleasant wood,

In which two birds are bound together.

One is of a snowy white; the other is red.

They bite each other, and one is slain
And devoured by the other.

Then both are changed into white doves,

And of the Dove is born a Phoenix,

Which has left behind blackness and foul death,
And has regained a more glorious life.

This power was given it by God Himself,

That it might live eternally, and never die.

It gives us wealth, it preserves our life,

And with it we may work great miracles,

As also the true Philosophers do plainly inform us.

In this image we see two fighting birds:
the red bird places himself on top of the
white one. Here the work on the white
stone ends and continues as the great
work on the red stone.

In the text these birds first change into
two white pigeons and after that into
the Phoenix. The white birds stand for
purity, spirituality, lightness and inno¬
cence. Pigeons have no bile and do not
know melancholy which binds the soul
to the earth. The pigeons are eminent
symbolic inhabitants of the element air.
The Phoenix forms the connection and
the transition between air and fire. Ac¬
cording to Lactantius the Phoenix resides
in a place without illness, death or any
other lack. There it is always green and
the source of life flows abundantly.

With very tuneful melodies the Phoenix
sings, from the highest tree, twelve tunes
a day about the glory of the Creator and
the Sun. After a period of a thousand
years, the Phoenix feels that his time has
come to die and to renew himself. He
leaves Paradise and flies to the earth, to
the land that is called after him: Fen-
ice which is the present Syria. There he
builds a nest of aromatic herbs in the
highest palm, and sits in the nest to die.
This process is of such intensity that

he ignites in spontaneous
self-combustion. The only
thing that remains is a sort
of white worm; a caterpillar
that emerges after three days
and becomes a new Phoenix
that rises up again to Paradise
for the next thousand years.
The Phoenix moves in the
element air but develops the
intensity of the next element:
the fire.

Abraham Lambsprinck

The lord of the forests
has recovered his kingdom

Now hear of a wonderful deed,

For I will teach you great things,

How the King rises high above all his race;

Aid hear also what the noble lord of the forest says:

I have overcome and vanquished my foes,

I have trodden the venomous Dragon under foot,

I am a great and glorious King in the earth.

There is none greater than I,

Child either of the Atist or of Nature,

Anong all living creatures.

I do all that man can desire,

I give power and lasting health,

Aso gold, silver, gems, and precious stones,

Aid the panacea for great and small diseases.

Yet at first I was of ignoble birth,

Till I was set in a high place.

To reach this lofty summit
Was given me by God and Nature.

Thence from the meanest I became the highest,

Aid mounted to the most glorious throne,

Aid to the state of royal sovereignty:

Therefore Hermes has called me the Lord of the Forests.

The completion of this part of the work
is symbolized by the King, the ‘Lord
of the Forest’, and takes place on his
throne. His feet rest on the dragon, a fish
serves as an armrest, the staircase to his
cubical throne consists of seven steps
that represent the metals.

The process has gone from the black
stage to the white, over the seven col¬
ours of the peacock’s tail, the ‘Cauda
Pavonis’.These stages have been taken,
the ‘Small Work’ has been accomplished

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and the cubical white stone is formed.
The King is the central figure in the
diagram.

On an equal level we find the images of
the birds that represent the element air.
After that follows the ‘Great Work’ on
the ‘Red Stone’.

The small work is the work of the
individual on himself, the microcosm.
The Great Work on the Red Stone is now
working in a wider context with the
macrocosm, or with the ‘higher cosmoi’.

The transition from the ele¬
ment earth to the element air
is represented by the winged
beings in the following two
images (11 and 12).

The Augmentation

In all fables we are told

That the Salamander is born in the fire;

In the fire it has that food and life
Which Nature herself has assigned to it.

It dwells in a great mountain
Which is encompassed by many flames,

And one of these is ever smaller than another -
Herein the Salamander bathes.

The third is greater, the fourth brighter than the rest

In all these the Salamander washes, and is purified.
Then he hies him to his cave,

But on the way is caught and pierced

So that it dies, and yields up its life with its blood.

But this, too, happens for its good:

For from its blood it wins immortal life,

Aid then death has no more power over it.

Its blood is the most precious Medicine upon earth,
The same has not its like in the world.

For this blood drives away all disease
In the bodies of metals,

Of men, and of beasts.

From it the Sages derive their science,
And through it they attain the Heav¬
enly Gift,

Which is called the Philosophers Stone,
Possessing the power of the whole world.

This gift the Sages impart to us with
loving hearts,

That we may remember them for ever.

Abraham Lambsprinck

The intensity of the fire works on every
fibre, every atom, every level of the body,
The body is 'renewed', recreated,

The intensity of the fire works on every
fibre, every atom, every level of the body
The body is ‘renewed’, recreated.

We see the fierce intensity of the fire
and its all-pervasive power on all levels
and through all ‘vehicles’ depicted in the
following image: an alchemist roasting a
salamander in an open fire. The text de¬
scribes that the salamander goes through
several fires of distinct nature and inten¬
sity. Arriving at the highest level he will
be beaten to death. In alchemy this is the
symbol of fixation or the perpetration of
Mercury in Quicksilver.

The intensity of the fire works on every
fibre, every atom, all levels of the body.
The body is ‘renewed’, recreated, or as
the Rosierucian’s’ say: transfigured.

The only thing that is comparable with
that is what one calls in the east the
kundalini; the rising of the energy from

the chakra at the base of the spine in the
form of two snakes that go upwards and
intertwine and cross each other at the
great psychic centres of the sympathet¬
ic nervous system, to end in the centre
above the head.

From now on the images show only
human figures and no longer animals. A
young king, the ‘Films Philosophorum’,
is flanked by the old King of the Forest
and by a winged ‘Mercurius Senex’.The
old Mercury wants to take the young
Hermes to the ‘highest mountain’ for an
ultimate initiation. The Old King loves
his son ‘wholeheartedly’ and does not let
him go: ‘Because I will die without you’.
The Son breaks away from the Father,
the King of the Forests, who now plays a
passive role again, and chooses to follow
the guide.

The father and the son have linked 11

their hands with those of the guide

Here is an old father of Israel,

Who has an only Son,

A Son whom he loves with all his heart.

With sorrow he prescribes sorrow to him.

He commits him to a guide,

Who is to conduct him whithersoever he will.

The Guide addresses the Son in these words:

Come hither! I will conduct thee everywhere,

To the summit of the loftiest mountain,

That thou mayest understand all wisdom,

That thou mayest behold the greatness of the earth,
and of the sea,

And then derive true pleasure.

I will bear thee through the air
To the gates of highest heaven.

The Son hearkened to the words of the Guide,

And ascended upward with him;

There saw he the heavenly throne,

That was beyond measure glorious.

When he had beheld these things,

He remembered his Father with sighing,

Pitied the great sorrow of his Father,

And said: I will return to his breast.

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In the power of the element fire a new
‘inner man’ emerges, a ‘son of philoso¬
phers’ and another fire being, a spiritual
guide, becomes visible. Fie leads the ‘son
of philosophers’ to an initiation on the
ultimate ‘coniunctio oppositorum’, the
supreme insight.

The Sun (spirit, Sulphur)
decides to leave his Father
(body, salt) and to follow the
guide (soul, mercur).This
guide leads him to a high
mountain and shows him the
greatest wonders.

Abraham Lambsprinck

Another mountain of India 12

lies in the vessel

Says the Son to the Guide:

I will go down to my Father,

For he cannot live without me.

He sighs and calls aloud for me.

Aid the Guide makes answer to the Son:

I will not let thee go alone;

From thy Fathers bosom I brought thee forth,
I will also take thee back again,

That he may rejoice again and live.

This strength will we give unto him.

So both arose without delay,

Aid returned to the Fathers house.

When the Father saw his Son coming,

He cried aloud, and said: - (see page 62)

This new situation is comparable with
the beginning of Pymander, the first
book of the Corpus Hermeticum, a col¬
lection of ancient Greek texts that is at¬
tributed to Fiermes Trismegistus. Quote:
‘Once while I was meditating on the
essential things and my mind was
transported, my bodily senses fell into
a slumber as may happen to someone
after excessive feeding or a great bodily
fatigue and is overcome by a deep sleep.
It seemed to me that I saw a mighty be¬
ing of indefinite stature, who called me
by name and said: “What do you wish
to hear and see and what do you long
to learn and to know?” I spoke: “Who
art thou?” And I heard in answer: “I am
Pymander the Spirit-Soul, the Being who
exists out of itself. I know your desire
and I am with you everywhere.” I said:

“I desire to be instructed in the essential
things, to understand their nature and
to know God. Oh, how I long to un¬

derstand!” He answered: “Keep firmly
in your consciousness what you wish
to learn and I will instruct you.” With
these words he changed in appearance
and at once, in the twinkling of an eye,
everything opened itself up to me; I saw

an immense vision.”

This quotation speaks for itself. The
father-king is the body that fell asleep
became passive. The son is Hermes, the
observant and concentrated thinking;
the consciousness that meditates over a

theme, a ‘seed-thought’. And
the guide is Pymander, who
is at the same time a univer¬
sal watcher over the human
consciousness (man-shep¬
herd) and keeper of authen¬
tic and true knowledge that
is potentially within every
human being and which
discloses the ultimate insight
to the questioning conscious¬
ness.

What does this vision mean? In the Py-
mander it is the creation of the worlds of
light and darkness. In Lambsprinck’s trea¬
tise it is an ultimate ‘coniunctio opposi-
toium’ because on the top of the moun¬
tain the son and the guide see the Sun
as well as the Moon, the light of the day
together with the darkness of the night.
In a very pictorial manner the cosmic
connection is revealed to the son, and
made comprehensible; how everything
is connected to everything else, and how
he himself fits into this scheme. In the
Hermetic writings one can read what
the vision of Pymander includes. These
words are of lesser importantance here.
What is important is the state in which
the young Hermes finds himself; the
possibility that he has to open his mind
to receive an ultimate insight or vision.
What does the vision disclose? Undoubt¬
edly it is the microcosm and the connec¬
tion with the macrocosm.

‘As above so below, for the performance
of miracles of the one thing.’

The Now is the Eternity. The intensity of
the Now is now so great that it expands
and changes into Eternity. All inspira¬
tion comes from this ultimate moment
of enlightenment. With this inspiration
thousands of libraries could be filled, but
for the candidate that ultimate moment
is the only thing that has true value.

Here the father 13

devours the son

My Son, I was dead without thee,

And lived in great danger of my life.

I revive at thy return,

And it fills my breast with joy.

But when the Son entered the Fathers house,
The Father took him to his heart,

And swallowed him out of excessive joy,

And that with his own mouth.

The great exertion makes the Father sweat.

The father calls his son back.
The intensity of that ulti¬
mate moment cannot last
too long, for otherwise the
physical body will die. The
body recalls his ‘vital spirits’.
The father devours his son
completely. We observe an
often-recurring theme here:
the outsider who carried out
an unlawful act is welcomed
back in the bosom of the old

Abraham Lambsprinck

The true tincture
of the sages

order, swallowed up and finally reborn
into a fruitful and acceptable synthesis.
One may also see the old king as the
old tradition that is worn out and has
become infertile. The son frees himself
from the entrapment of the old king and
thus will gain new experiences. In doing
so he violates strict taboos. After a time
the prodigal son returns to the father. He
returns to the old tradition, but renews
it from within so that it becomes fertile
again and can progress. In this way a
synthesis is reached. Because in order to
progress a set tradition one must, para¬
doxically enough, inject it and revive it
again from a new angle. All the material
with which one might work lies, after
all, in the bosom of the tradition.

Here the Father sweats on account of the Son,

And earnestly beseeches God,

Who has created everything in His hands,

Who creates, and has created all things,

To bring forth his Son from his body,

And to restore him to his former life.

God hearkens to his prayers ,

And bids the Father lie down and sleep.

Then God sends down rain from heaven
To the earth from the shining stars.

It was a fertilizing, silver rain,

Which bedewed and softened the Fathers Body.
Succour us, Lord, at the end,

That we may obtain Thy gracious Gift

Here the Father perspires heavily. From
him flows the oil and the true tincture
of the wise. The return of the son in the
father, of the spirit in the body, has a very

drastic effect on the body. We may see
the journey of the son with the guide to
the top of the mountain and the vision
of the ultimate ‘coniunctio oppositorum’
as an initiation in the ‘highest and at the
same time the deepest secrets that nature
bears in itself’. Thus the perspiration of
the Father is the precipitation and the
influence of a spiritual event on the body.
This influence is all-pervasive; it makes
the body of the Father soft and chang¬
es it completely into a tincture of clear

water. This tincture connotes
the ability of the candidate
to augment the result of his
work as he sees fit and ‘to
infinity’. It is the ability to
return at any moment to the
inner state of the ultimate
inspiration of the ‘coniunctio
oppositorum’ on the top of
the mountain, and from there
to do the creative work that is
required.

Here the Father and the Son are 15
joined as one, to remain forever

The sleeping Father is here changed
Entirely into limpid water,

And by virtue of this water alone
The good work is accomplished.

There is now a glorified and beautiful Father,
And he brings forth a new Son.

The Son ever remains in the Father,

And the Father in the Son.

Thus in divers things

They produce untold, precious fruit.

They perish never more,

And laugh at death.

By the grace of God they abide for ever,

The Father and the Son, triumphing gloriously
In the splendour of their new Kingdom.

Upon one throne they sit,

And the face of the Ancient Master
Is straightway seen between them:

He is arrayed in a crimson robe.

At last the father, the son and the guide
sit together; in other words: the body,
the spirit and the soul are seated togeth¬
er as completely equal partners on the
throne (Image 15) and together they
reign over their ‘kingdom’.Together they
form symbol of Mercury: the Red Stone
is produced.

Needless to say, the great work cannot
take place if the small work has not
been brought to a good end. The small
work is the work of man on himself. The

L.3

f- • • I.J

great work is the work on a greater scale
that goes beyond the importance of the
narrow interests of a few. The individual
is linked in a wider chain of inspira¬
tion, which perhaps could call be called
‘genius’.

The ‘Prima Materia’ with which we are
dealing all the time has to do with the
authentic Knowledge the ‘nous’ in us.
Preparing for ‘inspiration’ is a process
that can be learned. But there is no place

to learn it. One has to learn
it by oneself. By developing
an oeuvre, a body of work
or a life work, the ‘artist of
life’ has to open the right
channels within himself and
should not be carried away
by the lure of fame. For ‘he
who measures his greatness
with the muses changes into
a croaking crow’. ®

Abraham Lambsprinck

What is the result of the 'Great Work'?

In our deepest instinctive layers where
life melts organically with the world
around us, the Prima Materia is found
(Images 1 and 2).This is a powerful
stream of vitality that is transformed by
the special actions of the alchemist in
‘Quicksilver’, which gives him a ‘ray’ full
of inspiration and provides insight into
the matter from which he and the world
is composed.

This principle of the opening of a centre
of‘perception’ and ‘clear consciousness’
is repeated several times. The Quicksilver
is sublimated in the mental area (Image
3) and precipitates, purifies and opens
the emotional life (Image 4) and in¬
stincts (Image 5). Thus one part of the
work is completed (Image 6). The lower
nature of the adept is purified and at the
same time he has received insight and
has control over it. The alchemist needs
this control of his volitional, emotion¬
al and intellectual life in order to take
the following step: the development of
sensitivity and directional power in the
pure intuitive realm, the air area. Here
also Quicksilver expands to a sea of con¬
sciousness (Images 7 and 8).

When the Hermetic philosopher controls
this power as well he is awarded the title

‘King of the Forest’ by Hermes (Image
9). He then has complete control over
himself and the elements water, earth
and air. This is the end of the first part:
the “Small Work’ is completed, the White
Stone is produced.

The ‘Great Work’ takes place in the area
of the fire (Image 10). Fire destroys mat¬
ter and in order to gain control over fire
the body, matter, needs to become tem¬
porarily passive, even seemingly dead.

In the power of the element fire a new
‘inner man’ arises, a ‘son of the philos¬
ophers’ and also another fire-being, a
spiritual guide, becomes visible (Image
11). He guides the ‘Son of Philosophers’
to an initiation in the ultimate ‘coniunc-
tio oppositorum’, the supreme insight
(Image 12).The son brings his experi¬
ences to his ‘nether part’, the body (Im¬
age 13), and as a result it is completely
purified and transfigured. (Image 14).
Finally the Father, the Son and the
Guide - that is: body, soul and spirit - are
seated on the throne in complete equal¬
ity (Image 15) and together reign over
their ‘kingdom’. In unison they form
the symbol of Mercury: the Red Stone is
produced.

au cross

T heT or Tau is formed from the number seven, the number that refers
to the divine life, the life through the seven-spirit, and M (gamma) the
symbol of the earth (Gaia). The Tau as a symbol unites thus, the divine
and the earthly life.

Remove the upper part from the Ankh symbol and the Tau remains. We
may interpret it as the first letter of the typhon, the liberation from evil, from “Satan”.
The Tau cross was also popular among the Druids. The Tau represented to them the
symbol of the Druidic Jupiter. Their Tau cross was often formed by a magnificent
oak, from which all the branches, except for two very large ones, were cut. From the
crown of the oak tree they thus looked like two horizontal arms. The Tau was also
used to act as a border sign between different Druidic religious areas.

There is also another explanation of this Tau cross, namely as a phase in the develop¬
ment of humanity. The first phase has no cross, only a pole or phallic symbol. It refers
to the development of the abdominal consciousness - to be purely fertile while the
consciousness of man was still in the dream state.

Thereafter the stake became aT, a Tau cross, as a sign that the emotional life was now
awakening. It stood for the unlimited desire and following this desire, because lead¬
ership, authority, is missing. The human being cannot as yet control himself. If you
observe the Tau cross you may see the likeness to person without a head. The intersec¬
tion is the heart, the source of feeling.

The ‘regular’ cross that we know so well does indeed have a “head.” This represents
the development of a mental awareness of the individual, which means that he is now
able to make choices. The head can curb desire or direct it. The following phase is that
of the “cross with roses” where the influence of the ‘rose’ or ‘lotus’ is anchored in the
human heart. ®

Column

To be a pilgrim

F irst there was all the toiling to set up your life ade¬
quately. Alas, the visualizations of the dream job, the
perfect partner and a life of pleasure were rudely
overtaken by the demon of reality. Okay, so you set your
goals for tomorrow. But tomorrow never came for today
stood in its way.

So you tried other directions: this way and that way and
finally your own way with the step from an outer to an
inner life. All your life your ego told you: when all the
jigsaw pieces fit together, then you will have peace and
rest. But the soul knows that it is the other way round:
only when there is peace and quiet will all the pieces fit
together. But be warned, at the same time the puzzle will
fall into pieces! And is that what you want? Have you the
courage for that? The trust?

All those around you advise you in a variety of ways: keep
your feet on the ground - but that is the worst way to get
moving!

Every day we receive 86,400 time units from the Bank of
Life to use, and what we don’t use up is taken from us at
the end of the day, for time cannot be saved.

There is, moreover, a snake in the grass: your account

Miraculously, the seeker who set out
on his quest is not the same one
who arrives

with the Bank of Life may at any time be terminated. What
will then be left from the unfinished Book of your Life?

If you don’t set out on your journey you will only walk
around and around in the first chapter which you fully
know by heart by this time. So... in case tomorrow never
comes, get moving today on the pilgrim’s path. With a hat
made out of courage, a knapsack filled with perseverance
and a pilgrim’s cloak woven from your yearning. “Actually
I do not know who I am anymore, nor where I should
wend my way” sang the troubadour Yridanc, as recorded
in his Humility in the 13th century.

To be a pilgrim in this manner means getting lost in the
right direction —living in the certainty and acceptance of
an open-eyed uncertainty. And it is not the obstacles that
you will meet in your inner labyrinth that will most hin¬
der you but rather the pebble in your shoe called the ego.
You seek a path, the path of which the great teachers
speak, but you quickly find out that there is only your
path which you hack out for yourself by going forward
step by step. You’ll find that it is not about imitating their
lives but seeking for yourself what they sought on their
pilgrim’s paths. No well-trodden tracks alas, although fun¬
nily enough there are from time to time some portals on
your path: the Portal of Letting Go because some things
are to heavy to carry along; the Portal of Self-knowledge
from which you emerge in full imperfection with the
assignment to be without fear or blame for those imper¬
fections; the Portal of Union in which is felt the aching
hurting unity with humanity as well as the deep joy of
unity with the All.

Seven portals — seven assignments - seven remittances -
seven presents. Seven spirals upward in the quest of the
pilgrim. From self to seeker, from seeker to soul, from
soul to selfless Self.

Miraculously, the seeker who set out on his quest is
not the same one who arrives. The path changes while
you travel it, and in turn going the path changes the
pilgrim. With every stumbling step you exercise your
spiritual muscles. Every bridge across a ravine offers you a
breath-taking view of the mountain of attainment.

And finally you become aware that the pilgrimage itself
knows a transformation as well. After the initial stages of
seeking, exploring the path, gaining insight and choosing
your direction, now follows the stage of actually going
the path with a ruthless disregard for any inconveniences
you may encounter. Every step is a letting-go and every
letting-go is a receiving. You lose your world and gain the
Universe. ®

The periodical Pentagram is published
on a quarterly basis in Dutch, Bulgarian,
Czech, English, Finnish, French, German,
Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Spanish Polish,
Portugese, Russian, Slovak and Swedish.

Publisher

Rozekruis Pers

Managing editor

Peter Huijs

Design

Studio Ivar Hamelink

Editorial address

Pentagram
Maartensdijkseweg 1
NL-3723 MC Bilthoven
The Netherlands

e-mail: pentagram@rozekruispers.com

Administrative address

Rozekruis Pers, Bakenessergracht 5
NL-2011 JS Haarlem, The Netherlands
e-mail: pentagram@rozekruispers.com
New subscriptions can take effect at any
time.

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The Netherlands

Address in England:

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Nothing in this publication may be
reproduced in any form without written
permission from the publisher.

ISSN 1384-2064

VISIONS

• The true Rosicrucian
On the road with Paul

• The respiratory field

• The road to where?

Abraham Lambsprincks: The Philosopher's Stone

• The Eye and the Witness

• Nicholas of Cusa

ESSAY

• The beauty and the sublime

COLUMN

• To be a pilgrim

SYMBOL

• The Tau Cross

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Full text of "Pentagram 2017 1 English"

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